Texas House hopeful Bob Romano and Democratic Party officials took their fight for the House District 105 seat to Dallas County courts on Friday. They argue in separate lawsuits that state elections officials erred in their orders to county elections officials on how to conduct a recount in the tight race.

Bob Romano

Party leaders want a Dallas County judge to order the recount committee to ignore state officials’ guidelines and count for each candidate the straight-party votes where people using electronic machines may have accidentally de-selected the candidates.

The lawsuits, which are likely to be combined into one suit and heard on Monday, come on the heels of what’s already been a heated contest with implications for both parties and Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick’s future.

Linda Harper-Brown

The race for the State House 105 seat, which covers most of Irving, came down to 20 votes in three-term Republican incumbent Linda Harper-Brown’s favor. With Ms. Harper-Brown’s win, Republicans have a 76-74 majority in the House. But earlier this week Mr. Romano requested the recount of the more than 40,000 ballots cast in District 105.

Democrats on Friday accused Republican Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade’s office of trying to influence the results of the recount by telling Dallas County elections officials not to count some votes.

“They’re allowing partisanship to come into play,” Dallas County Democratic Party chairman Darlene Ewing said.

Republican Party officials did not return phone calls seeking comment late Friday. A Secretary of State spokesman said he could not comment because he had not seen the lawsuits.

Last week, Republicans accused Democrats of impropriety over a review of provisional and overseas ballots in Dallas County. GOP leaders said ballot board judge Chorsia Davis, a Democrat, accepted ballots that should not have been counted and used white correction fluid to improperly change rulings about which ballots to accept or reject. Ms. Davis denied those claims.

The acceptance of 61 provisional ballots narrowed Ms. Harper-Brown’s lead from 34 votes to 20 votes. Republicans are hoping to review ballot affidavits for signs that they should not have been counted in the House District 105 race.

In the lawsuits filed Friday, the Democrats’ argument centers on a contentious circumstance that occurs with electronic voting machines. If a voter casts a straight-party ballot, but then selects a candidate from another party in a specific race, the machine counts a vote for that particular candidate from the opposing party.

But if a voter casts a straight-party ballot, then selects the name of a candidate from within that same party in a specific race, that candidate is actually de-selected and no votes are counted in that race.

Some call that practice emphasis voting because, they argue, the voter wanted to vote straight-party and then put extra emphasis on a particular candidate from within that party. Others, however, argue there is no way to tell whether the voter wanted to emphasize that candidate or simply did not want to vote for anyone in that race.

In a letter to Dallas County Elections Administrator Bruce Sherbet this week, state elections director Ann McGeehan instructed his office not count votes for any candidate in the race where a voter cast a straight-party vote on an electronic voting machine but ended up deselecting the House 105 candidate from within that same party.

“We can’t count them, and the state even verified that,” Mr. Sherbet said Friday.

Mr. Sherbet said people who used one of the electronic voting machines during early voting were given a review screen once they made their way through the entire ballot. If they chose a straight-party vote then later deselected a candidate in a particular race, whether intentionally or not, the review screen showed that they had not chosen any candidate for that race. Mr. Sherbet also said that every voting booth had posters warning voters of the potential of de-selecting candidates.

“It’s been an ongoing issue with electronic voting that’s been batted about,” Mr. Sherbet said.

On Election Day, Dallas County used only paper ballots, which eliminated any confusion.

Ms. Ewing said she realized that it is impossible to tell whether voters meant to emphasize particular candidates or just didn’t want to vote in that particular race. But she said her party’s interpretation of the law says that votes that the electronic machines discount in such instances should be counted.

“Once again the Republicans are trying to disenfranchise voters, and we’re saying every vote gets counted regardless of the outcome,” Ms. Ewing said.