Unsurprisingly, Texas Gov. Abbott, not happy enough that he and all his cronies won, calls for an investigation into Harris County's election results. -- (edited)
Posted by
Qale
Nov 14 '22, 14:03
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Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday called for an investigation into Harris County's election practices last Tuesday, citing the delayed polling place openings that prompted an ongoing legal battle, a shortage of paper ballots at some polls, understaffing and other problems.
Abbott, in a news release, said he wants the secretary of state, attorney general and Texas Rangers to initiate probes into "allegations of improprieties in the way that the 2022 elections were conducted in Harris County."
"The allegations of election improprieties in our state's largest county may result from anything ranging from malfeasance to blatant criminal conduct," Abbott said in a statement, which did not offer further detail. "Voters in Harris County deserve to know what happened. Integrity in the election process is essential. To achieve that standard, a thorough investigation is warranted."
Harris County Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum responded in a statement, saying the county is "committed to transparency" and already participating in the state's audit process of the November election.
"The office is currently completing vote tabulation of provisional ballots in reparation for the statutorily required manual count that must occur before canvassing," Tatum said. "The last day to Canvas is November 22, 2022. The office is currently reviewing issues and claims made about Election Day and will include these findings in a post-elections report to be shared promptly with the Harris County Elections Commission and the County Commissioner Court."
The attorney general's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Election monitors from the Texas Secretary of State's office and the U.S. Department of Justice were present in Harris County for Election Day, providing both state and federal oversight.
Attorney General Ken Paxton had “agreed to dispatch a task force to Harris County" to monitor the November election proceedings, according to a letter from the Texas Secretary of State’s office, though the Chronicle found no evidence any members of his task force were actually on the ground in Harris County.
Secretary of State's office spokesman Sam Taylor said the agency referred the matter to the attorney general's and Harris County district attorney's offices for investigation. Taylor added that the county already is subject to the next round of randomized post-election audits required by the Republican-backed elections overhaul law, Senate Bill 1.
With that underway, "we will be collecting even more information to ultimately provide the public with greater clarity on the root causes of the issues witnessed in Harris County on Election Day," he said.
The delayed openings of about a dozen polling places in Harris County led a state district judge to allow an extra hour of voting time after a last-minute lawsuit filed by progressive advocates.
The attorney general's office immediately appealed, and the Texas Supreme Court ordered the county to segregate votes cast during the extension while it reviews the judge's action.
The Harris County Republican Party, which has said it plans to sue the elections office over claims that polling locations faced paper shortages on Election Day, has a press conference set for 4 p.m.
Andy Taylor, an attorney representing the Harris County GOP, said last Thursday that paper shortages occurred at 23 voting locations on Election Day, which he claimed were all in Republican areas.
"We will, if those facts support what we believe to be true, file a lawsuit and we will have a day of reckoning in the courtroom for Administrator Tatum and all of his folks," Taylor said.
Tatum has denied the county ignored requests from any polling location to deliver additional paper.
Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis, a Democrat who was not on the ballot this year, said Abbott's call for an investigation is linked to nationwide efforts to undermine elections.
"Taking a page from Trump’s 2020 election subversion playbook, Governor Abbott and election deniers across Texas have laid the groundwork to cast doubt on Harris County’s midterm elections for over a year," Ellis said. "Before votes were ever cast or counted, they weaponized partisan election probes, conspiracy theories, and anti-democracy laws like SB 1 to put this play into motion. The people rejected those tactics last Tuesday, and I’m confident that democracy will still win the day."
James Slattery, a senior staff attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, said in a tweet that the statement from Abbott is the latest in a string of actions to question Harris County election results.
Harris County Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey, a Republican, said in a statement he supports an investigation.
"Clearly, Harris County has a chronic problem with administering elections, and this warrants an investigation," Ramsey said. "Just as I called for an audit with the previous unelected elections administrator, I appreciate the governor’s commitment to open and fair elections."
Harris County Democratic Party Chair Odus Evbagharu called the governor's request for an investigation "yet another example of the political theater we’ve come to expect from our state leader," in part because the county already has procedures in place to evaluate problems after an election.
"Gov. Abbott is acting like Harris County doesn’t examine elections after they occur, and that is simply not the case," Evbagharu said. "The elections administrator always conducts a postmortem after an election and from that report, processes are updated and streamlined and corrections in process are made."
The county has commissioned a report on problems experienced during the March primary. A preliminary version was released over the summer.
Harris County Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia said any problems on Election Day were related to the switch to new voting machines that brought the county into compliance with a recent state law requiring counties to use machines that produce a paper record.
“The issues, that were not specifically in any particular areas, were technological challenges that were mandated by Texas state law," Garcia said. "Rather than waste resources on this nonsense, Gov. Abbott ought to investigate how many permitless guns have been used in violent crime.”
Tarrant County, which uses the same Hart InterCivic voting machines as Harris County, experienced issues in 2020 when electronic scanners rejected around one-third of mail ballots, forcing the county to create copies of the ballots to scan, then had delays due to an equipment malfunction in this year's March primary and a software problem in the May primary runoff. Tarrant County also had delays opening polls in March, reporting that all polling locations were open by 11 a.m. Like Harris, Tarrant also is subject to the state's forensic audit of the 2020 election.
Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican who helped write SB 1, said in a statement Monday that he "wholeheartedly supports an investigation into the failed election practices of Harris County."
"It's abominable that government holds an election, but either couldn’t or wouldn’t provide voters with paper ballots to cast their votes," Bettencourt said in a statement. "I suspect many election contests will be filed. This is not about being an election denier, it is about actual reported voter irregularities.
Tatum, who just took office in August, was selected by the Harris County Elections Commission to replace Isabel Longoria, the outgoing elections administrator.
Longoria resigned just days after the March primary, following criticism over a slow vote count and the failure to include about 10,000 ballots in its Election Night tally. Those ballots were included in the final count. Harris County Republicans called for Longoria’s termination, even after she submitted her resignation.
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