A US federal judge Monday rejected a case brought by Texas Republicans which sought to toss out 127,000 drive-through votes cast in Harris County, Texas, concluding that the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the lawsuit.

Many states have recently changed their voting laws due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Texas has still generally required its voters to vote in person. To allow more voters to vote safely, Harris County allowed some to vote from their cars using a portable electronic machine. The Texas Republican Party had previously sought to halt the use of this device, but their efforts were rejected by the Texas Supreme Court.

Arguing that the votes were illegally cast, Texas Republicans then filed a lawsuit in federal court. The plaintiffs argued that under the Constitution’s election clause, only the state legislature could make rules changing voting procedures. Therefore, Harris County acted unconstitutionally when it unilaterally made changes to voting rules allowing drive-through voting.   They ultimately asked to have all votes that were cast by drive-through voting be excluded. This request is controversial because not only would it disenfranchise everyone who used these devices, but Harris County is also one of Texas’s largest Democratic strongholds. In the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton won the county by over 160,000 votes.

Judge Andrew Hanen dismissed the lawsuit, concluding plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge drive-through voting. However, he also noted that if the case had reached the merits, he would have denied the request for injunctive relief to exclude the votes, noting that disenfranchising voters did not serve the public interest.

On Monday night the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals released an order, without comment, denying the plaintiffs’ subsequent appeal for injunctive relief.