Jasen Rabalais, chief deputy over community services and the Harris County Joint Task Force for Precinct 3 constable, alleged in court papers last week that a campaign worker for Michel Pappillion, a candidate who beat him by 37 votes and edged him out of the runoff, illegally cast votes on behalf of some senior citizens.

Sherman Eagleton was the top vote getter by more than 800 votes of more than 18,000 cast, while Rabalais came in third.

Eagleton and Pappillion are scheduled to face each other in the May runoff for the Democratic nomination. Pappillion denied allegations that his campaign violated election law, but declined to say whether he employed the campaign worker, referring questions to his attorney, Andy Taylor.

“I’ll just have to wait and see what the evidence shows,” Taylor said, calling the lawsuit that was filed in civil court on March 10 “frivolous.”

Rabalais “got beat in an election, and now he’s trying to steal that outcome in a court of law,” he said.

Neither Rabalais nor his attorney answered questions about the case Thursday.

Rabalais’ complaint states that the worker initially approached his campaign, offering to “deliver votes from seniors through special access to senior living facilities,” guaranteeing 1,000 votes, and Rabalais turned her down.

Rabalais supporters noticed the worker at the polls wearing a Pappillion shirt and telling elderly voters that they had already voted, the complaint alleges.

The Rabalais campaign confronted the worker, who told them she is a nurse, has access to nursing homes and gets seniors to “vote for that person who [she is] working for,” the complaint alleges.

The complaint alleges the worker “deliberately falsified, illegally completed, or unlawfully influenced the ballots and early voting applications of elderly residents” in Precinct 3.

Rabalais’ suit calls for the court to order a new election, subtract illegal votes or “declare the outcome of the election if able to ascertain the true outcome.”

Before referring questions to his attorney, Pappillion denied the allegations.

Rabalais “spent an exorbitant amount of money to get himself elected, and unfortunately the political process, the people, spoke, and he was not successful,” Pappillion said.

Taylor said there would be a hearing next week. He called Rabalais a “sore loser” candidate with a weak case whom he looked forward to “thoroughly defeating” in court.

The lawsuit also names Eagleton, who said in a filing that he opposed voiding the election but if Rabalais is granted relief, that Rabalais be substituted for Papillion in the runoff.

University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus said campaigns regularly – and legally – target places like nursing homes. He said courts try to stay out of electoral politics, and that proving illegalities would be an uphill battle.

“Generally, the frequency of a challenge like this is pretty rare,” he said.

But he said Gov. Greg Abbott had made recent comments about cracking down on voter fraud.

“If there’s ever a moment where a challenge like this finds lucrative political grounds, it’s now,” Rottinghaus said.

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