cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53966186

Our investigation reveals unexplained discrepancies in early-voting turnout records, including declining totals, retroactive revisions, and conflicting county and state reports.

Republicans have spent at least $78 million on television ads about transgender people just in Texas, according to various estimates from advertising spending tracking groups like AdImpact and first reported by Puck. That $78 million figure accounted for nearly half of all advertising spending for Republican Ken Paxton, according to Puck.

In the final stretch of the midterm elections, Republicans nationwide spent at least $183 million in ads about transgender people in hopes of replicating the 2024 success of their "Kamala is for they/them" commercial. A staggering 217,000 television ads featuring attacks on transgender people have been deployed to TVs nationwide, according to AdImpact. That's despite most voters around the country rating the economy as a much bigger issue than whether transgender girls should play in women's sports.

A Travis County district judge ordered the deposition earlier this week, but after lawyers for the student union group objected, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the order 15 minutes before the questioning was to begin.

The Supreme Court, which did not explain the reasons for its ruling, acted on an emergency motion filed late Thursday, said Mimi Marziani, a lawyer for the Transgender Education Network of Texas, or TENT. In preparation for an anticipated lawsuit, TENT hopes to learn the identity of the organizers for the student union, which formed in September in Wyoming and had an address linked to a Houston-area post office box.

In recent weeks, TENT learned that printed fliers and text messages were circulating in its name without permission, according to an investigative report by CBS News Texas. At Tuesday’s hearing, Travis County District Judge Jan Soifer will not determine who sent the mailers or whether anyone broke the law, but will decide whether TENT can ask a telecommunications company where the messages came from.

In its court petition, TENT states it had nothing to do with these texts and mailers, and that its name, website, and images were used without permission. The text messages, sent October 12 and 13, directed recipients to TENT’s website for information about gender-affirming care in Texas and resources for transgender students, including guidance on school bathrooms. TENT alleges that the communications were part of an effort to mislead voters and damage the organization’s reputation ahead of the midterm elections.

The development comes as questions continue to swirl around who sent the flyers that began appearing in mailboxes across Texas this week.

Transphobic billionaire Elon Musk donated $158 million to Texas PAC, a super PAC supporting Texas’ rabidly anti-transgender Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) Senate campaign, Axios reported yesterday. Paxton is running a high-profile race against pro-LGBTQ+ progressive Christian state Rep. James Talarico (D), who could be the first Texas Democrat to win a US Senate seat in over three decades.

A Texas school district canceled a high school’s fall musical after a female student was cast as the male lead. The decision, it said, was an effort to comply with the state’s anti-drag law — which was struck down in August.

Ana Mota, a senior at South Grand Prairie High School, was initially cast as Seymour in her school’s student production of Little Shop of Horrors following days of what she described as tough auditions, The Dallas Morning News reports. The starring role, Mota told local ABC affiliate WFAA, was supposed to be one of her final performances before graduating next spring.