Texas election season really begins with the first ballot-eligibility challenge.

This year, there is a challenge to whether one of the incumbent Texas Supreme Court Justices, the recently appointed Jeff Brown, is eligible in the Republican primary.

The suit is brought by Joe Pool, Jr., his opposing candidate for the Republican nomination. It seeks an injunction against Republican Party officials to remove Justice Brown from the ballot. Its allegation that Justice Brown did not obtain a sufficient number of signatures (50) in each of Texas’s fourteen appellate districts for ballot eligibility.

More specifically, it alleges that some of the petition circulators failed to properly attest to the date or circumstances under which signatures were gathered. If the affected signatures are struck, Justice Brown may have fewer than fifty valid signatures in either the Fourth Appellate District (San Antonio) or the Sixth Appellate District (Texarkana).

Quorum Report says that a preliminary hearing is scheduled for Monday in Travis County. The Travis County website shows a 9:00 setting for a hearing on a temporary injunction.¹

Read more: Petition (excerpts), Joe Pool Jr. v. Steve Munisteri and the Republican Party of Texas, No. D-1-GN-13-004324 (filed Dec. 27, 2013). I omitted the backup pages containing the affidavits because they also contained voter names and IDs. Attorneys can access the full document through the Travis County website.