As you know, there was a lawsuit filed against Paul Bettencourt and the Harris County Tax Assessor’s office over allegations of illegal mishandling of provisional ballots in the past November election. That suit was later expanded to include allegations of voter disenfranchisement by Bettencourt’s office. According to KHOU, some mighty interesting facts have come out so far in the deposition phase.
“This is as blatant a case of election corruption that I have seen,” said Matt Angle of the Lone Star Project, a Democrat activist group.
The Lone Star Project’s complaint revolves around Ed Johnson.
Johnson is the associate voter registrar at the Harris County Tax Assessor Collectors office, but according to state documents, that’s just his day job. Johnson is also a paid director of a small company that provides voter data to Republican candidates for office. That company, Campaign Data Systems, billed at least $140,000 in 2008.
Campaign Data Systems happens to be owned by Republican State Rep. Dwayne Bohac, who also happens to be one of the big pushers of voter ID bills. Johnson testified before the Senate about supposed instances of vote fraud. He tells the Republicans what they want to hear in the guise of a nonpartisan election official, while being on their payroll. Nice little scam they’ve got going there, no? I think we all have a better idea now why State Reps. Garnet Coleman and Ana Hernandez called for appointed Tax Assessor Leo Vasquez’s resignation over Johnson’s (and George Hammerlein’s) testimony, and it makes Vasquez’s response look that much weaker.
I’m sure the Lone Star Project will have plenty more to say on this soon, and I’m looking forward to it. In the meantime, I’m thinking the campaign ads against Vasquez next year are going to write themselves. This is going to be fun.
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So, let me get this straight: you have a Republican guy who has expertise in data, specifically voter data and voter registration records and such and has hired out his services to help his fellow Republicans running for office and then one particular Republican official hires him at the county elections level because of his expertise and he and his business partner are both very interested in the issue of voter registration records. Where is the problem? We elect these officials on a partisan basis; why would we be surprised when they hire partisan staff or when that staff takes issue with potential items that favor the other party (as in voter fraud by Democrats)? And somehow there is a conflict of interest? This is like balking at the dog catcher for having a puppy training business on the side. I don’t see the problem. I just see Democrats mad that elected Republican officials are putting an end to their years of voter fraud and happen to have hired a professional voter data guy as well.