Critics pounce on Harris County’s 2022 election fumbles

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This protection is made attainable by Votebeat, a nonpartisan news group protecting native election administration and voting entry. The article is out there for reprint beneath the phrases of Votebeat’s republishing policy.

Harris County officers have but to elucidate the complete explanation for the poll paper shortages, lengthy traces and voting machine issues on Election Day, and specialists say the dearth of information is fueling a bipartisan surge of criticism — each legitimate and baseless. At least two shedding Republican candidates, citing the issues, have already filed authorized challenges to void the Nov. 8 election and order a brand new one, and legal professionals are warning election officers to anticipate extra.

The newest problem got here Wednesday from Erin Lunceford, a former choose and 189th District Court Republican candidate who misplaced her Harris County race to Democrat Tamika Craft by a 0.26% margin, round 2,000 votes. During a Harris County GOP news convention to announce the election contest, Lunceford’s lawyer, Houston-based Andy Taylor, stated he needed to make use of the lawsuit to ship a message to Harris County elections administrator Clifford Tatum.

“Mr. Tatum, your day of reckoning has just started,” stated Taylor, who can also be the lawyer for the Harris County Republican Party.

Politicians are additionally piling on. “This is about thousands of real voter irregularities in this county, and they never should have happened. But they happened with a minimum of absolute gross incompetence or malevolence,” stated state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican who additionally spoke on the press convention. Bettencourt has filed laws so as to add restrictions to voting legal guidelines and cited Harris County’s Election Day woes when submitting a bill for the upcoming legislative session that may permit the secretary of state to nominate regulation enforcement officers to research “potential voting violations.”

As of Friday, Tatum, who was appointed in August to guide the county’s elections division, had but to publicly launch a promised evaluation with particulars specifying the variety of polling websites that ran out of paper, opened late or had points with voting machines.

Joyce LeBombard, president of League of Women Voters of Texas, stated that Tatum, within the first few months at his submit, is now possible conscious of the politics of Harris County and what to anticipate. She stated he’ll must make efforts to be as communicative and clear as attainable shifting ahead.

“I hope that [Tatum] is given the opportunity to be able to do that, and that we don’t see movement in the Legislature to overtake Harris County because of these normal elections problems that can arise in a county of its size,” she stated.

Lunceford’s lawsuit alleges greater than 3,000 voters have been turned away from 26 polling places as a result of poll paper shortages. The swimsuit says the issues elevate questions in regards to the reliability of the election outcomes, although it didn’t instantly present proof.

Cindy Siegel, chair of the Harris County Republican Party, stated that as of Wednesday, the occasion “accumulated a lot of data” and acquired “more than 2,000 reports” from voters, election judges, ballot watchers and clerks in regards to the issues they noticed on Election Day in Harris County.

Siegel referred to as for Tatum’s resignation. “The voters’ confidence has been shaken,” she stated.

Taylor informed Votebeat on Friday that he’s nonetheless gathering textual content messages, emails and notes from in-person interviews to current as proof. He stated 26 sworn statements from polling website judges and alternate judges — folks tasked with supervising polling websites — will likely be publicly launched and filed subsequent month as proof to help Lunceford’s swimsuit.

Last week, a shedding Republican candidate for the Texas House of Representatives, Mike May, filed the first election contest within the county, a single-page grievance that provided no proof in help of it. May, who misplaced to Democrat Jon Rosenthal by greater than 6,000 votes, alleged Tatum’s mismanagement and poll shortages meant voters have been unable to forged ballots. May has requested for donations on social media, suggesting he’ll want $50,000 to $100,000 for authorized charges. He didn’t reply to a number of calls and emails requesting an interview.

Rosenthal’s Houston-based lawyer, Chad Dunn, filed a response Tuesday asking the House to dismiss the election contest as frivolous. If the House, which has jurisdiction, fails to dismiss the competition, it “can expect bare and baseless challenges of this nature to be filed with increasing frequency,” the response says.

Polling place issues immediate election contests

A courtroom ordered Harris County to increase voting till 8 p.m. on Election Day. A lawsuit by voting rights advocacy teams cited a couple of dozen places that opened late and that have been closed for a while as a result of points with voting machines. Two weeks later, the county’s Republican Party, represented by Taylor, filed a lawsuit that claimed the scarcity of poll paper “disenfranchised” an unspecified variety of voters. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott referred to as for an investigation of the elections operation as a result of potential “malfeasance.”

Last month, a day earlier than Tatum was set to canvass, or finalize, the election outcomes, Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit in an effort to toss more than 2,000 ballots forged throughout the additional hour of voting on Election Day. Only hours earlier than the state’s canvassing deadline on Nov. 22, the Texas Supreme Court ordered the county to incorporate the ballots in its licensed election outcomes.

Tatum has publicly acknowledged that some polling websites opened late, others had points with voting machines and a few had paper shortages. He informed county leaders his workplace responded and delivered supplies the place they have been wanted. Tatum additionally stated he’s in “dire need” of extra funding, extra employees and, most significantly, sophisticated software — utilized by a number of counties of Harris’ dimension — to assist him monitor points in actual time at polling websites. Without this software, his employees has been calling each election choose who labored on the greater than 700 polling websites within the county to assemble information.

But some county leaders say these bipartisan elections contests would have been filed no matter whether or not Tatum’s evaluation was available and no matter what the evaluation concludes.

“It’s clear their goal in filing these contests is not evaluating the election and figuring out how to improve processes. It’s instead to demonize the administrator, to sow doubt in election results because they lost,” Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee stated. “And to throw a Hail Mary in hopes that a judge will undo the votes of more than a million Harris County residents.”

Natalia Contreras is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with The Texas Tribune. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@votebeat.org.

Disclosure: The League of Women Voters has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news group that’s funded partly by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Financial supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Find a whole list of them here.