Former Republican Texas House speaker calls GOP effort to throw out drive-thru votes 'patently wrong'

Joe Straus, the former Republican speaker of the Texas House, on Sunday voiced his opposition to a GOP lawsuit seeking to throw out around 127,000 drive-thru votes in the state's most populous county.

"The lawsuit to disenfranchise more than 100,000 voters in Harris County is patently wrong," Straus said in a statement that he shared on Twitter, adding that "the Republican Party needs to return to a place where we win with ideas and persuasion rather than trying to intimidate and silence our fellow citizens."

Straus also teamed up with another prominent Texas Republican, lawyer Ben Ginsberg, to file an amicus brief opposing the suit, in which they cited the 2000 election recount as an example of the party's past efforts to ensure the ballots of "every qualified voter" get counted.

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The Texas Supreme Court did throw some cold water on the suit Sunday, denying the petition to toss the votes without comment, but the amicus could still factor into the decision by a federal judge, who will hear the case Monday morning.