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Clifford Tatum

Lege targets Harris County election administrator

Feb 28th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

We knew something like this was coming.

House and Senate bills filed by Republican lawmakers in response to Harris County’s mismanagement of its recent elections could give the Texas secretary of state the authority to step in, suspend county election administrators when a complaint is filed and appoint a replacement administrator.

Election administration experts told Votebeat the legislation was an overreaction to the desire to hold Harris County accountable for years of election mismanagement, and would disrupt the state’s ability to help county election offices improve and address systemic problems.

If passed, the secretary of state’s office would change from being a guide and resource for election workers to being an auditor that can investigate and fire them. Some election officials are concerned this change could prevent local election workers from asking questions or seeking help from the office for fear of being reprimanded.

“Currently we work hand-in-hand. [The secretary of state’s staff] are our No. 1 resource, and that benefits all voters,” said Jennifer Doinoff, Hays County elections administrator. “Putting them in the position of oversight would definitely change the dynamic.”

Authored by state Rep. Tom Oliverson and state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, both Harris County Republicans, the bills are among several already filed this legislative session in reaction to the long lines, late openings and reports of shortages of ballot paper on Election Day in Harris County. More than 20 lawsuits from losing Republican candidates have also been filed against the county, citing those problems and seeking a redo of the election. Harris County Elections Administrator Cliff Tatum did not respond to Votebeat’s request for his comment about the legislation.

House Bill 2020 and Senate Bill 823 would allow the secretary of state’s office to take action in a county if a complaint is filed by one of several officials and organizations involved in elections, and if there’s “good cause to believe that a recurring pattern of problems with election administration exists.”

The bills list five causes for suspension of an elections administrator:

  • malfunction of voting equipment,
  • unfair distribution of election supplies,
  • errors in tabulation of results,
  • delays in reporting election returns,
  • discovery of voted ballots after the polls close.

Currently, any problems that arise in an election or with an elections administrator are handled by the county’s election commission. Those commissions are made up of the county judge, the tax assessor-collector, the county clerk and the chairs of local political parties. The commission’s oversight powers allow it to appoint, terminate or accept the resignation of the county’s election administrator.

Some Texas voting rights groups worry the Legislature will use the problems in Harris and those lawsuits as “an excuse” to advance bills such as these. The League of Women Voters of Texas in a statement last week said such legislation, if passed, “is fraught for potential abuse, infringes on the rights of county governments to select their own elections administrator, and demeans the meaning of local governance.”

Slightly more than half of Texas counties appoint nonpartisan election administrators to run their elections. This legislation would apply only in those counties and not in the 122 that elect county clerks or tax assessors tasked with running elections and handling voter registration.

“We are subject to the authorities of those that appointed us,” said Remi Garza, Cameron County elections administrator and the Texas Association of Elections Administrators legislative committee co-chair. “It does cause concern that somebody from outside that jurisdiction would be able to usurp the authority of the elections commission in dealing with their elections administrator.”

There’s more, but I don’t have the mental energy to continue, so go read the rest for yourself. This story came out the same day that a Senate committee approved a bill making “illegal” voting a felony with even harsher punishments and lower standards for “illegality” than before. So, you know, a banner Monday.

My first thought is that I’m not really clear what these guys are aiming at. I mean, Harris County could in effect call their bluff, restore election administration to the County Clerk, have Cliff Tatum move over and be the chief of elections under Teneshia Hudspeth, and this bill would no longer apply to us. Democrats would still be running the elections. Maybe they actually think Stan Stanart can win that ridiculous election contest, I don’t know. At this level, this is just weird.

Second, these bills – I assume they’re identical in each chamber – are just a mess. The story goes into detail about how absurdly vague the provisions are, which could put a whole lot of election administrators in solidly red counties in danger if something goes wrong, as things sometimes do. I obviously wouldn’t expect the Secretary of State to crack down on, say, Bell County as they’re slavering to do to Harris, but it could be that the first example to be made is in a red place. This is what happens when you let your rage control you.

(Of course, if we had managed to pass a federal voting rights law over the past two years, we wouldn’t be talking about any of this now. But hey, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema preserved the filibuster, so.)

Third, I kind of suspect that in the same way that the TEA probably doesn’t actually want to take over HISD, the SOS probably wants no part of administering Harris County elections. It’s big, it’s hard to do, and most importantly now everything that goes wrong is your fault. Who wants that? But the Republicans in the Lege don’t care about that. Slapping around Harris County is the point. If there’s collateral damage, so be it.

And finally, with a less-predatory state government, we could have a reasoned discussion and admit there are problems that could be fixed with some help from that state government and Lege find ways to do elections better that aren’t predicated on punishment and the exercise of raw power. And if I flap my arms and think happy thoughts, I could fly.

I’ve made the decision to pay less attention to the Lege than I have in the past because I don’t need the mental torment. The Republicans are gonna do what they’re gonna do, and we can’t stop them. One fine day we’ll win enough elections to make it stop, but until then this is what we’re gonna get. I don’t know what else to say.

Tell me you have no evidence of voter suppression without telling me you have no evidence of voter suppression

Feb 23rd, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
7 comments

Hilarious.

Houston furniture magnate Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale has launched a website in hopes of gathering evidence of voter disenfranchisement in Harris County’s November 2022 election.

The initiative follows the Gallery Furniture owner’s lawsuit filed last week accusing the Harris County Elections Administrator’s Office of refusing to turn over public records related to the election.

GOP lawmakers including Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have called for Harris County to redo its November election based on claims of ballot paper shortages, though they have not provided any evidence or estimate of disenfranchised voters. McIngvale, who was a major donor supporting Republican candidates, including County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s opponent Alexandra del Moral Mealer, now appears to be searching for just that.

The website, called Hard to Vote, leads with a recorded message from McIngvale: “Do you believe you were denied the opportunity to vote in the November 2022 election? I’ve heard reports of machines that didn’t work, ballot shortages, voting locations suddenly closing. If you experienced difficulties or felt unjustly treated, we want to hear your story.”

Voters can fill out a form to share their voting experiences, upload evidence and agree to be filmed for “upcoming social media or commercial purposes.”

McIngvale said Tuesday he believes Harris County voters were disenfranchised based on reports of paper shortages, machine malfunctions and polling locations that did not open or close on time. He has spoken with plenty of those disenfranchised voters himself, he said.

“Customers come in and tell me that all the time,” McIngvale said. “They were turned away at one polling place and they gave up. A lot of them just went to another polling place. But a lot of them were disenfranchised by not having the first place open and ready to go like it should have been. It’s not that hard.”

I’m sure they all have tears in their eyes and call him “sir”, too. Not to be needlessly pedantic here – believe me, this is extremely needed pedanticism – but if they went to another location then by definition their vote wasn’t suppressed because they did in fact vote. This is why we have so many voting locations on Election Day, precisely because stuff sometimes happens. I’m sure all the lawyers for those whiny crybaby loser candidates will be thrilled to hear all this, as well as whatever other fanciful stories people contribute to your new fanfic site. You can see here for some background and here for Judge Hidalgo’s latest response to “the mattress guy” if you want. But really, a good horse laugh is all you need.

(Is it possible there are a few people who actually didn’t vote because of the paper-outage delays? Sure, maybe a couple. Anything is possible. It would be a shame if that happened, though I’d still want to know how long they waited before they gave up and why they didn’t or couldn’t go to one of the 750 other locations to vote, but it could have happened and it would be unfortunate and we would need to do better next time. It would also be nowhere close to “voter suppression”, especially on a scale that could have affected even the closest race. And the fact that the furniture dealer is openly looking for any such example, especially those that include people who did actually vote, shows just how desperate and ridiculous and baseless these Republican charges have been all along.)

The furniture guy files a lawsuit

Feb 15th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
6 comments

Spare me.

Houston furniture magnate Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale has filed a lawsuit against the Harris County Elections Administrator’s office accusing it of refusing to turn over public records related to the November 2022 election, adding to an array of GOP litigation aimed at the county’s elections process.

According to the petition filed Monday night, Wayne Dolcefino, a media consultant and former TV journalist, submitted multiple requests for public information on behalf of the Gallery Furniture owner, who was a major donor supporting Republican candidates including County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s opponent Alexandra del Moral Mealer.

In response to each of the requests for public information, the elections office responded by seeking an opinion from the Texas Attorney General’s office allowing it to withhold the information due to ongoing litigation, the lawsuit states.

The petition also acknowledges the county has provided some of the requested documents.

In a statement Tuesday, Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee’s office said: “The requests for these documents were handled the same as any other requests for documents related to ongoing litigation against the county. We’re evaluating the lawsuit and will let the courts sort it out.”

The Harris County Elections Administrator’s Office also issued a statement, saying it readily has responded to requests that do not require documents subject to the litigation, and has sought an opinion from the attorney general’s office on those that do.

“According to the Public Information Act, the attorney general’s office has 45 working days from the day after the request to respond. As of today, the office has not received an opinion on how to proceed with these particular public information requests. Any suggestion that the Harris County Elections Administrator’s Office lacks transparency is false,” it said.

The lawsuit is an example of why the Texas Legislature should repeal the “litigation exception” provision in state law that offers public offices an option to withhold records during litigation, said Bill Aleshire, an Austin attorney who works with the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.

“There is no justification for denying the public information about a controversy just because it involves litigation,” Aleshire said. “In fact, when something controversial enough happens to be the subject of a lawsuit, that is exactly when the public most needs to know what the record shows. Yet, the way the (Texas Public Information Act) is written, no one — except those involved in the underlying lawsuit — can get access to the public information.”

The “litigation exception” typically is upheld by courts, so McIngvale’s lawsuit is unlikely to produce the requested records, he said.

However, state law does not prevent the county from providing the records, but rather gives the county discretion to decide.

“It does not make the records ‘confidential’ (where it would be illegal to disclose the information); it just means the government is not required to disclose the information,” Aleshire said. “But they could if they are willing to do so.”

So if I understand this correctly, the Elections Office could provide these documents on demand, but legally they don’t have to until they get an opinion on it from the AG’s office. That may be a bad feature of the law as it now exists, but it is the law and a district court is highly unlikely to deviate from the normal course of behavior. Which makes this entire spectacle little more than a plea for attention and a waste of everyone’s time. Have I got that right? The Press has more.

Yep, still no voter fraud found

Dec 21st, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

So says the official 2020 election audit.

Despite challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, there was neither widespread voter fraud nor other serious issues in Texas’ 2020 elections, according to an audit of four of Texas’ largest counties released Monday evening by Secretary of State John Scott’s office.

While the 359-page report did find some “irregularities,” it nonetheless reinforced what election experts and monitors — including Scott, the state’s chief election official — have routinely said: that the 2020 contest was not riddled with widespread fraud, and Texans should be confident that future elections will be similarly secure.

“When the Texas Election Code and local procedures are followed, Texas voters should have a very high level of confidence in the accuracy of the outcome of Texas elections,” the report stated. “When procedures are followed, results of the election are trustworthy. Indeed, in most cases, the audit found that the counties followed their procedures and clearly documented their activities.”

[…]

The report found that “many of the irregularities observed” in 2020 were likely caused by the “extraordinary challenges” posed by the pandemic and ensuing staffing shortages. And, auditors said, such problems are even less likely to occur in future contests because of legislative changes, including those in Senate Bill 1.

Of the four counties the report analyzed, the Harris County general election had the most issues, including improper chain of custody of mobile ballot boxes at 14 polling locations. Auditors also found thousands of discrepancies between electronic pollbook records and audit logs.

See here for a bit of background. No one who doesn’t have to is going to read the entire 359 page report, but you can get a high level summary at the beginning of it. I have two points to add. One comes from the Chron story, which addresses some of the items raised in the audit about Harris County:

Harris County did not properly handle certain electronic voting records during the 2020 election, according to an audit from the Texas secretary of state’s office that uncovered numerous administrative mishaps but no evidence of widespread voter fraud in four of the state’s largest counties.

In a report released Monday evening, the state elections office found that Harris County failed to properly document the “chain of custody” — a required step-by-step accounting of voting records — for thousands of ballots across at least 14 polling locations. The finding was among those mentioned by state elections officials last month in a letter to the Harris County elections administrator, delivered days before the November midterms.

The report outlined a number of slip-ups across the four audited counties, which included Republican-controlled Collin and Tarrant counties and Democratic-run Dallas and Harris counties. It concluded that Texas voters “should have a very high level of confidence in the accuracy of the outcome of Texas elections” when counties follow the state election code and their own local procedures.

“Each of the four counties has detailed procedures and detailed forms to document compliance with the code and ensure that only lawful ballots are cast and counted,” the report reads. “When procedures are followed, results of the election are trustworthy. Indeed, in most cases, the audit found that the counties followed their procedures and clearly documented their activities. In some cases, however, they did not.”

When counties did not properly follow state law and local procedures, “discrepancies and irregularities ranging from small to large ensued,” the report said.

State officials singled out Harris County for “very serious issues in the handling of electronic media,” finding that the county lacked records to explain the origin of 17 “mobile ballot boxes” — the pieces of hardware that store vote tallies and transmit the data to and from polling places. The report also identified disparities between electronic records from the polls and “tally audit logs” at numerous locations.

Since the 2020 election, Harris County has switched to a new system that stores voting records on vDrives — a type of USB thumb drive — with “procedures in place to document proper chain of custody … in the event a vDrive fails,” the report reads.

[…]

Harris County Elections Administrator Cliff Tatum has pledged a complete assessment of the issues that arose during the midterm while warning the county is in “dire need” of improvements to the way it conducts elections.

Last month, Tatum penned a letter to state officials seeking to address the audit’s preliminary findings, including the chain-of-custody problems.

Writing to Chad Ennis, director of the secretary of state’s forensic audit division, Tatum said the issue with the 14 locations cited in the report arose when votes were “stranded” on devices used at Harris County’s drive-thru voting and other locations.

To read the “stranded” results, Tatum wrote, county officials had to create 30 “replacement” mobile ballot boxes.

“The number of cast votes on those 30 MBBs align with the expected number from the voting sites,” Tatum wrote to Ennis. “This explains why there were more than 14 MBBs created to read the results and why those initial 14 were not read into the tabulator.”

The poll book disparities, meanwhile, were the result of voting machines being moved from one location to another during the election.

“While this may have been done to address long lines at any of the vote centers during the 2020 election, this is a practice that our office no longer follows,” said Tatum, who was appointed elections administrator in July.

We have the joy of being “randomly” audited again for this November’s election, so we’ll see what they have to complain about this time.

The other point I would raise, which was mentioned in passing in that Chron story, was that this audit was released on Monday night (the Trib story published at 8 PM) during Christmas week. I don’t know about you, but I think that if they had something juicy to report, they’d have dropped it at a time when people would be actually paying attention. This has all the hallmarks of a “nothing to see here” report.

If Greg Abbott demands an investigation, Greg Abbott will get an investigation

Nov 17th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

This is all still so dumb.

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg is launching an investigation into “alleged irregularities” during last week’s election after receiving a referral from the Texas Secretary of State’s office.

Ogg sent a letter to Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw asking for the Texas Rangers’ assistance on Monday, the same day Gov. Greg Abbott called for an investigation and the Harris County Republican Party filed a lawsuit accusing Elections Administrator Cliff Tatum and the county of numerous violations of the Texas Election Code.

The allegations include paper shortages at 23 polling locations, releasing early voting results before polls closed at 8 p.m., the improper disposition of damaged ballots and inadequate instructions on how poll workers were to manage instances in which the two-page ballots were not completely or adequately scanned into machines.

Under Harris County’s countywide voting system, residents had 782 locations to cast their ballots on Election Day. The paper shortages affected a small number of polling places.

The GOP lawsuit, however, claims “countless” voters were turned away due to the paper shortages and did not go to a second location to vote.

See here for the background. Ogg, who was not exactly an asset to Democrats in this election, has taken some heat for this. I get that and I’m not here to defend any of her recent actions, but I’m not exercised about this. There was going to be an investigation of some kind once Abbott threw his tantrum, and given that it can’t be Ken Paxton unless he’s invited in, it may as well be the local DA. Having the Texas Rangers assist makes sense in that it’s best to have outside help for an internal political matter. If this turns out to be much ado about nothing, as I believe it is, then let the Rangers take the blame from the Republicans for not finding anything. I am not going to waste my energy sweating about this at this time.

In the meantime:

Harris County Elections Administrator Cliff Tatum, speaking at length publicly for the first time since Election Day, pledged a complete assessment of voting issues Tuesday but said the county is in “dire need” of improvements to the way it conducts elections.

“A full assessment is in order,” Tatum told Harris County Commissioners Court on Tuesday. “We have started that assessment, but I’d like to remind you and the public we are still counting votes.”

He said his office still was working its way through about 2,100 provisional ballots cast after 7 p.m. last Tuesday. A state district judge ordered the county to keep the polls open until 8 p.m. because some voting locations failed to open on time. Those provisional ballots are being kept separate from the unofficial count, pending a court ruling on the validity of those votes.

The deadline for the county to canvass the vote is Nov. 22.

[…]

Tatum told Commissioners Court his staff is contacting each election judge to gather feedback and assess challenges they faced, including any technical difficulties and the response they received.

At least one polling place had a late opening and certain locations ran out of paper, Tatum confirmed.

Tatum took over the job in August, just two months before early voting in the November election began. So far, he noted the county is in “dire need” of some critically needed improvements, including a better communication system, more maintenance and operations personnel and a tracking system for monitoring requests from the election workers running polling locations.

Tatum said he has spoken with election judges who requested technical help and did not receive it.

“Because I can’t track that technician within the system that I have, I can’t tell you what happened,” Tatum said.

I dunno, maybe wait until all the work is done and see what happens before storming the barricades? And yes, especially now that they have full control over the budget, the Democratic majority on Commissioners Court needs to ensure this office has sufficient resources. We need to do better. Reform Austin has more.

This is all so dumb

Nov 16th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
9 comments

I’m going to quote a large swath of this Reform Austin story because it sums up what has been happening the past couple of days better than I could.

Gov. Greg Abbott called for an investigation into Harris County’s election practices last Tuesday, saying that he wanted to get answers as to why a myriad of election administration issues occurred. Delayed openings at some polling places openings, a shortage of paper ballots at some polls, and understaffing problems plagued the county on election day.

“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 but did not offer further details.

He added: “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.”

But Harris County Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum responded that the county is “committed to transparency” and is already participating in the state’s election audit process.

“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,” Tatum said in an emailed statement.

Harris County Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia said that any problems on Election Day were technological and were related to the new voting machines Harris County was forced to purchase to bring the county into compliance with the new state law.

That law mandated the new models would be used as they produce a paper backup in addition to electronically capturing voter input. GOP state legislators passed the legislation called SB1 in their post-2020 “election integrity” campaign, despite any evidence of irregularities or fraud.

“Rather than waste resources on this nonsense, Gov. Abbott ought to investigate how many permitless guns have been used in violent crime,” Garcia said.

Also Monday, the Harris County Republican Party filed a lawsuit against Tatum and the county, alleging paper shortages at some voting centers amounted to violations of the Texas Election Code.

But Harris County Democratic Party Chair Odus Evbagharu disputed the GOP’s assertions, saying that “The claim that there was, like, thousands and thousands of people who were disenfranchised, there’s no claim to that, there’s no proof of that,” Evbagharu said.

The delayed openings of roughly a dozen polling places on election day led a state district judge to allow an extra hour of voting time at those sites in response to a last-minute lawsuit filed by progressive advocates.

The Texas Civil Rights Project argued the case on behalf of the Texas Organizing Project, which sued to keep polls open. The suit stated it felt compelled to take legal action because election operation disruption earlier that day had caused voter disenfranchisement.

Hani Mirza, voting rights program director at the Texas Civil Rights Project said in a statement “We went to court because these closures and errors, especially in communities of color across Harris County, robbed voters of the opportunity to cast their ballot.”

Harris County District Judge Dawn Rogers ruled the effort was likely to prevail, and that the government had infringed upon voters’ rights, and thus she approved the additional time.

Not surprisingly, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office appealed the organization’s suit immediately, prompting the Texas Supreme Court to order the county to segregate votes cast during the extension while it reviews the judge’s action.

Honestly, all things considered, I thought Election Day didn’t go as badly as some people are saying. There were some glitches, and for sure we could do a better job with the paper, but we’re talking twenty-some locations out of 782. One reason we have so many locations is to give people plenty of other options if the place they went to is having issues. It’s a pretty small percentage, and so far as I can tell, no one has come forward to say that they were prevented from voting. Even more, the obvious remedy to voting locations that opened late or had to shut down for a period while paper issues were being sorted would have been to allow voting to go on for some extra time, so that anyone who was unable to get to another location and could not return before 7 PM would still have a chance to vote. Which the Texas Organizing Project and the Texas Civil Rights Project sought to do and got an order from a district court judge, which was then opposed by Ken Paxton and shot down by the Supreme Court. You can’t have it both ways.

The Elections Office is going to have to make its mandated reports. There was already going to be an audit of the November election, in case anyone has forgotten. Paxton is going to do whatever he’s going to do. If the local GOP is claiming that there was some kind of conspiracy to make it harder for Republicans to vote – pro tip: never believe a word Andy Taylor says – all I can say is good luck proving intent. Until shown otherwise, this all looks like a bunch of hot air and sour grapes. The Trib, the Chron, and the Press have more.

The “less is more” option for improving Election Day

Nov 12th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

This deserves serious consideration.

Widespread problems with Harris County elections likely would be relieved if officials reduced the number of polling locations in favor of fewer sites that operate more efficiently, a Rice University researcher and some recent reports say.

“We do just fine with early voting,” said Robert Stein, a political scientist and fellow at the school’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. “We have all kinds of locations over 12 days and that count goes fine. Then, at the end of election night you have 900 people standing in line.”

That line, like plenty of others, is made up of frustrated voters who, despite Harris County offering 782 polling locations with roughly 11,000 voting machines, encounter confusion and delays as poll workers troubleshoot problems, wait for instructions or replacement equipment from election officials.

County Election Administrator Clifford Tatum, the county’s fifth person to oversee elections since 2018, said Wednesday that officials would assess and investigate problems with this week’s mid-term election once they have completed the final tally and verified election results.

“We will look at every polling location,” Tatum said.

[…]

Tuesday’s election and others in recent years indicate the way to a smoother day is to decrease the number of places where problems can occur by reducing where people can cast a vote, Stein said.

Stein, who has studied local elections for more than 40 years and spent the past decade examining turnout and voter habits, said numerous analyses have shown voters likely can be better served with larger, more efficiently operated polling locations strategic to where they can conveniently vote.

The benefit would be two-fold, Stein said.

First, poll workers could be better distributed on Election Day so issues can be triaged as they arise. Currently, a polling location with six workers can grind to a halt if a single machine goes down and all the workers are huddling to handle the problem. Larger facilities can operate more smoothly because some election officials can focus on specific issues, such as technology, while less tech-savvy poll workers maintain the operations and check voters in. Reducing locations also means polling sites would have more machines at their disposal.

All of those changes would allow better use of “queuing theory,” the same research stores use to sell people more items with fewer workers. Better management of lines has been shown to improve not only the time voters spend in line, but their confidence in elections and likelihood to vote, according to a study jointly managed by Caltech and MIT.

Fewer polling places also would reduce the number of voting machines that need to be brought to a central counting location, verified, certified and uploaded, which should speed up the counting process.

Stein said more study is needed to calculate exactly how many polling locations are the correct amount for Harris County, and where they should be located, but it is likely a more efficient election could be conducted with hundreds of fewer sites.

Harris County already had trimmed the number of polling places this year, mostly because of a new state law requiring all votes be backed up with a paper ballot, that meant the county had to purchase and train scores of election volunteers on new machines. In 2020, the last major election — held during the COVID-19 pandemic — election officials offered 122 locations for the 12 days of early voting and 807 on Election Day.

[…]

The challenge to reducing polling locations in the Houston area, however, is politics of the most local level. Opposition to reducing the number of polling stations, historically, has been widespread because of fears it would disenfranchise low-income Black and Latino voters by removing neighborhood-centric sites and force suburban — often Republican — voters to drive farther to cast a ballot.

Most voters, however, do not vote in their neighborhood precincts, studies and the recent election show. Of the 1.1 million ballots cast in Harris County this cycle, nearly 700,000 were completed at 99 locations during early voting. Another 61,000 ballots were submitted by mail.

That leaves the approximately 350,000 people who voted Tuesday, many of whom crowded into major locations such as the Metropolitan Multi-Service Center on Gray Street, Trini Mendenhall Community Center and Jersey Village Municipal Government Center, all of which acted as early voting and Election Day sites.

Election officials could not produce a detailed list of where people voted Tuesday, citing the work they doing to finalize the election, but early voting indicates — as Stein said research also suggests — people vote where it is convenient for them but not necessarily closest.

Stein compared election locations to Starbucks, where someone’s habits may change but center on the most convenient choice. It may not be the closest one, he said, but it is the one on their way to work or while running errands.

“I can go back in time and model it,” Stein said. “You have got to know exactly where every voter is going to vote and you can get close with it. Is it perfect? No, but you can get pretty close.”

Additionally, local officials can leverage other options to easily connect people with polls. Metropolitan Transit Authority already offers free rides to polls through early voting and on Election Day, for example.

Early voting indicates voters already are finding their way to the most convenient places. Despite the 99 early voting locations being chosen to cover most of the county, the locations visited by the most voters are those located in major hubs for shopping or business, or where high concentrations of people pass by on their daily commutes. As a result, 50 of the locations handled 537,471 of the voters, while the other 49 saw 155,007 voters.

I feel like we had a version of this debate when the idea of voting centers was first proposed for Harris County. People at the time were very attached to the idea of voting in their neighborhood, and that’s understandable. Black and Hispanic communities have fought for generations for access to the ballot box, and being able to vote in their neighborhoods was both a symbol of their victory and an activity that had a lot of meaning. The fear that they would not be able to do that and would have to go someplace unfamiliar, possibly unwelcoming, and possibly inaccessible to some, was legitimate and a real reason to be wary if not opposed to the concept.

I believe that is different now, mostly because early voting is so popular and because voting at any location on Election Day is no longer new and unknown. The reason we have nearly as many Election Day locations where anyone can cast a vote as we did precinct locations where you could only vote at the one where you lived is basically the compromise that allowed for this hybrid version of voting centers to be initiated. The idea was always to consolidate voting locations on Election Day. It really does make sense and should eliminate a lot of the issues that caused delays, as Stein lays out in the story. And now that people are much more acclimated to the idea of voting wherever on Election Day, not to mention the fact that far fewer people wait until Election Day to vote, I would think moving towards that original vision, coupled with a plan and a promise to make both the voting experience and the vote-counting experience smoother and simpler and less time-consuming, ought to work. It’s absolutely worth a try. Campos and Stace have more.

There were still ballots being counted yesterday

Nov 11th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
8 comments

I think they’re done now? It’s hard to say for sure from the story.

With more than 1.1 million ballots cast, Harris County on Thursday still was counting ballots from Tuesday’s election.

The county filed a request for an extension Wednesday evening to get more time to complete its preliminary, unofficial count beyond the 24-hour deadline mandated by the Texas Election Code.

The state’s 24-hour rule to complete the Election Day tally is not new, but county officials said this is the first year Harris County is bumping up against the deadline because the county has implemented a paper ballot record, which is now required under state law. The county exceeded the deadline during this year’s March primaries.

[…]

A member of the county’s canvassing authority filed the motion Wednesday to obtain the court order allowing the county more time to process ballots, which a state district judge granted that night.

Leah Shah, a spokesperson for the Harris County Elections Administrator’s office, attributed the delays to the addition of paper ballot records and said the county anticipates it will finish counting by the end of the Thursday.

“When introducing paper voter records into the process we are now accounting not only for the processing of mail ballots, but also the processing of emergency slot ballots,” Shah said.

Emergency slot ballots are paper voter records that were not scanned at the polling location, which could happen for multiple reasons, including paper jams.

The county received 1,099 mail ballots on Election Day, along with 857 emergency slot ballots, according to the county.

All of those paper records had to be processed by the Early Voting Ballot Board before they could be counted. The board is made up of an equal number of representatives appointed by the county’s Republican and Democratic political parties.

There have been four Unofficial Results reports released since Wednesday morning. The date and time are in the files’ names.

CumulativeReport-20221109-04:51, with 1,094,415 total votes, 55,393 mail ballots, and 1,039,022 in person ballots.

CumulativeReport-20221109-08:46, with 1,096,633 total votes, 55,393 mail ballots, and 1,041,240 in person ballots.

CumulativeReport-20221109-17:10, with 1,100,979 total votes, 59,186 mail ballots, and 1,041,793 in person ballots.

CumulativeReport-20221110-14:42, with 1,102,097 total votes, 60,302 mail ballots, and 1,041,795 in person ballots.

As I said, it’s not clear to me if they are done – the Chron story had a publication time of 2:50 PM yesterday, which would correspond with that last updated file, but it also refers to “the end of the day”. I’m drafting this at about 8 PM and haven’t seen anything new, so maybe we’re done pending any provisional ballots. At some point I hope to do an interview with Clifford Tatum, and when I do I’ll ask him for an explanation of this. In the meantime, as I appended to yesterday’s post about the order extending the deadline to vote to 8 PM and the SCOTx ruling that put that aside, the closest race is now one in which the incumbent, 180th District Criminal Court Judge Dasean Jones, trails by 165 votes. If there are still votes, even provisional votes, to be counted, it is possible – still not likely, but possible – Jones could pull ahead. All we can do now is wait and see.

Tatum came in to run this election quite late in the game, and as we know Harris County is still new to the machines with the printers. I thought early voting went pretty smoothly, but there were some significant disruptions on Election Day – some of which were outside the county’s control – and while we were adequately warned about the count taking awhile and the HarrisVotes Twitter account was good about providing updates during the night, we really do need to get the count finished faster than this. I mean, we had 550K more voters in 2020, though the number on Election Day was smaller then because so many people voted early. The point is, the potential for this to be messier in two years unless things improve is significant. It’s going to take more resources and a better plan to collect the votes and get them processed. We need to get started on that ASAP.

UPDATE: Here’s the 8:15 PM version of the Chron story.

The Harris County Elections Office finished its preliminary count Thursday afternoon of more than 1.1 million votes from Tuesday’s election, following its request for an extension to finish its tally beyond the 24-hour deadline set by the state election code.

The county’s submission of the results to the state came shortly after the Harris County Republican Party said it plans to sue the office over claims that polling locations faced paper shortages on Election Day.

The state’s 24-hour rule to complete the Election Day tally is not new, but county officials said this is the first year Harris County has bumped up against the deadline because of the introduction of a paper ballot record now required under state law. The county exceeded the deadline during this year’s March primaries, too.

After receiving the extension, all ballots subject to the 24-hour rule had been counted by 3:12 p.m., according to the elections office. A spokesperson with the Texas Secretary of State’s office confirmed Harris County reported its final results shortly before 5:00 p.m.

At an afternoon press conference, Andy Taylor, the Harris County GOP’s legal counsel, criticized the county’s new Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum, saying the election was poorly run and the GOP is investigating claims that paper shortages occurred at 23 voting locations on Election Day, which Taylor claimed were all located in Republican precincts.

“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 that the county ignored requests to deliver additional paper.

“I have staff in the field at this very moment delivering paper to any location that’s requested,” Tatum said Tuesday evening. “We’ve been delivering paper throughout the day.”

[…]

In response, Harris County Democratic Party Chair Odus Evbagharu said the reconciliation form is designed to be preliminary and unofficial.

“There is literally a disclaimer on this form that says ‘these numbers are subject to change as information is verified after Election Day,'” Evbagharu said. “It’s a snapshot in time of what the numbers are. That’s why we have a canvass. That’s why we have 10 days after to make sure that all of these things are right.”

Evbagharu said that while the reconciliation form is new under a state law passed in 2021, the vote counting process also took time to verify under Republican Stan Stanart, who ran Harris County elections for eight years until 2018.

“They never reconciled it in 24 hours,” Evbagharu said. “The only difference now is that you have it on paper so now they can make a big deal about it.”

He also disputed the claim that election problems only occurred in Republican strongholds, citing voting difficulties residents experienced in Houston’s predominantly Latino East End.

“They’re just now crying into the abyss because they lost,” Evbagharu said. “If I spent $20 million on an election and all I can say is I got a couple judicial seats, I’d be pissed, too. So, I’m not surprised if (Richard) Weekley and Mattress Mack and all these people are calling them like, ‘what the hell did you do with all of our money?'”

[…]

Secretary of State spokesman Sam Taylor said the office’s election trainers on the ground in Harris County Tuesday night observed several members of the early voting ballot board, which processes mail and provisional ballots from prior to Election Day, as well as staff counting regular ballots, leave in the middle of counting.

That “certainly contributed to the delay due to a shortage of people to continue the counting process,” he said.

The early voting ballot board consists of a small group of people appointed by the county elections administrator, sheriff and two major political party chairs, selected from lists submitted by the parties.

We’ll see what happens next. Threatening to sue is a lot easier than suing, which in turn is a lot easier than winning. I personally would like to know more about who wasn’t there during the counting and why. Things will happen, and people will have needs that come up and can’t be helped, but if that is a factor, it needs to be addressed going forward.

Omnibus 2022 election results post

Nov 9th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
13 comments

It’s already midnight as I start writing this. I’m just going to do the highlights with the best information I have at this time.

– Nationally, Dems are doing pretty well, all things considered. As of this writing, Dems had picked up the Pennsylvania Senate seat and they were leading in Georgia and Arizona. They held on in a bunch of close House races. The GOP is still expected to have a majority in the House, but not by much. The Senate remains very close.

– Some tweets to sum up the national scene:

– On that score, Republicans appear to have picked up CD15, which they drew to be slightly red, while the Dems took back CD34. Henry Cuellar is still with us, holding onto CD28.

– Statewide, well. It just wasn’t to be. The running tallies on the SOS Election Result site are a bit skewed as many smaller red counties have their full results in while the big urban counties have mostly just the early votes counted. Heck, they didn’t even have Harris County early results there until after 10:30 PM (the point at which I went and snoozed on the couch for an hour because I was driving myself crazy). It will be a ten-point or more win for Abbott, I just can’t say yet what. A survey of some county results early on suggested Beto was around where he’d been percentage-wise in most of the big counties (Tarrant, where he was a few points behind, being an exception) but was going to need some decent Election Day numbers to approach his raw vote margins. He didn’t do as well as he had done in 2018 in some of the larger suburban counties like Collin and Denton and didn’t do as well in South Texas.

– He also didn’t do as well in Harris, which made for some close races and a few Republican judicial candidates with early leads. A couple of those had eroded by the 11:30 addition of more Election Day and mail ballots, but we might see a few Republican judges on the bench next year. As of that 11:30 PM vote dump, Beto was leading Harris County by nine points, well short of where he had been in 2018.

– But as of this time, and with the proviso that I don’t know which voting centers have reported and which are still out, the Harris County Democratic delegation was all ahead, though not be a lot. This includes Lesley Briones for County Commissioner, which if it all holds would give Dems the 4-1 margin on Commissioners Court that they sought. There are still a lot of votes to be counted as I type this.

– Going back to the state races, Republicans may pick up a seat or two in the Lege. HD37 was leaning their way, and they may hold onto HD118. Dems were leading in HDs 70 (by a little) and 92 (by a more comfortable amount), two seats that had been drawn to siphon off Dem voters in formerly red areas. As of this writing, the open SD27 (Eddie Lucio’s former fiefdom) was super close but all of the remaining votes were from Hidalgo County, where Dem Morgan LaMantia had a good lead in early voting. That one will likely be a hold for Dems. On the other hand, SBOE2 was leaning Republican, so Dems may be back to only five members on the SBOE.

– There were of course some technical issues.

Tight races in Harris County, where around 1 million votes will be tallied, could hinge on whether ballots cast after 7 p.m. will be included in the count, after an Election Day filled with glitches and uncertainty for voters and poll workers alike.

Harris County District Court Judge Dawn Rogers signed an order keeping all county voting sites open until 8 p.m., only to have the Texas Supreme Court stay her order just in time to create confusion at voting locations letting voters arrive late.

In a three-sentence order, the court said voting “should occur only as permitted by Texas Election Code.” The high court also ruled that votes cast in the final hour should be segregated. That means those votes can’t be counted until the court issues a final ruling.

That ruling could be critical in the event that certain county races, including the hard-fought battle for county judge between Democratic incumbent Lina Hidalgo and Republican challenger Alexandra del Moral Mealer, are close enough to be decided by those set-aside votes.

“Every single vote counts,” said Laila Khalili, a director at the voter engagement group Houston in Action. “Some elections can be won by just a couple of votes.”

Khalili watched a handful of voters file provisional ballots at the Moody Park voting location.

The request to keep the polling sites open late was made by the Texas Organizing Project, Texas Civil Rights Project and ACLU of Texas, citing what they said were late election location openings and poor planning that disenfranchised some voters.

“These delays have forced countless voters to leave polling places without being able to vote,” the groups said.

Harris County was unable to estimate or confirm how many votes were cast after the typical 7 p.m. cutoff that allows for anyone in line by that time to cast a ballot.

Voters who arrived between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. cast a provisional ballot, according to the county attorney’s office. Some voters, later in the evening, complained that election workers even denied them that option, as the Supreme Court stay was broadcast to the 782 polling locations.

There were some issues with temporarily running out of paper at some locations and some long lines at others. We’ll just have to see how many provisional votes there are.

– Finally, for now, all of the county and city bond issues were passing. The closest ones as of this time were city of Houston prop E, up by eight points, and Harris County prop A, up by 11.

I’m going to hit Publish on this now and go to bed. I’ll make updates in the morning, either here or in a new post.

UPDATE: It’s 2:30 and I never actually got to sleep. With 334 of 782 voting centers reporting, Dems have gained some more ground in Harris County. Beto leads by nine points, while Judge Hidalgo is up by almost two full points and over 15K votes. She has led each aspect of voting. A couple of Dem judges who trailed early on are now leading, with a couple more in striking distance. There will be some Republican judges next year barring something very unexpected, but the losses are modest. All things considered, and again while acknowledging there are still a lot of votes out there, not too bad.

UPDATE:

An email with the summary file hit my inbox at 4:51 AM. Democrats officially have a 4-1 majority on Harris County Commissioners Court. By my count, Republicans won five judicial races in Harris County.

The counting process

Oct 26th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

I don’t think I had seen this explained before.

Harris County residents likely will have a long night waiting for election returns Nov. 8, according to county Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum.

It takes around one minute for the county’s equipment to read a digital drive that contains a polling location’s vote count — and election workers will be receiving a drive from each of the county’s 782 polling locations.

The county’s equipment can read two of those drives at the same time, which would put the total counting time — assuming no problems arise — at more than six and a half hours.

“That sort of tells you how long it’s going to take to process all of the results that come in from Election Night,” Tatum said.

“The reality is that we will not have all of the final results tabulated before midnight,” Tatum added. “The math simply does not lend itself to allow us to do that.”

The county has not had complete results before midnight in decades, owing largely to the population and sprawling geography poll workers had to traverse to turn in ballot boxes and voting machines after the polls closed. In recent years, however, wait times for results have stretched further into the early-morning hours. This year’s March primaries took 30 hours to tally, prompting harsh criticism of Tatum’s predecessor, who later resigned over vote-counting issues. Harris County was the only one in the state to exceed the 24-hour limit.

Tatum said the elections office’s top priority is accuracy over speed.

“We just need our voters to know that simply because all the results aren’t in before midnight doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong,” Tatum said. “It’s just the process.”

Asked why the county does not have more equipment available to cut down the reporting time, Tatum said the challenge is balancing speed and accuracy.

“If you have multiple readers going, you want to be sure that the operators that are operating those readers are following the processes and procedures. So, if we have the opportunity to add in an additional reader, we’ll do that. But right now, our plan is to read two at a time. They are expensive equipment. It’s about control and accuracy in the process.”

Sounds reasonable. Usually, we get most of the votes tallied by around midnight – the May elections were both like that, thanks in part to the reduced turnout. The primary this year was an exception, and the blowback from it was exacerbated by a lack of communication from the Elections office. Here, Administrator Clifford Tatum lays out a schedule for when we can expect updates, and if we get that plus clear communications if and when something is causing a delay, I think we’ll be fine. Campos has more.

SOS inserts itself

Oct 21st, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

It’s the damn fraudit again.

The Texas secretary of state’s office on Tuesday warned Harris County officials it still is missing information about the chain of custody for certain election materials in its ongoing audit of the 2020 election.

In a letter delivered days before the start of early voting in the November midterm, Chad Ennis, director of the secretary of state’s Forensic Audit Division, urged Harris County Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum to continue cooperating with the audit, as the records provided by the county so far “still leave many questions unanswered.”

“Given that early voting for the November 2022 election begins in a matter of days, there is an immediate need for us to inform you of our preliminary findings,” Ennis stated in the letter.

Accompanying the letter was a list of 14 polling locations for which the secretary of state’s office said it needs additional documentation, including NRG Arena, Toyota Center, Trini Mendenhall Community Center and Kingwood Community Center.

The office also cited one polling location where it said 401 more ballots were tabulated than expected when compared to the poll book and the number of provisional ballots cast.

[…]

Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, said the office sends inspectors to Harris County for every election, along with many others “if we receive requests to do so or if we determine inspectors are needed.”

“For example, we will have staff from our office on hand in Gillespie County this year because we had to train employees from their county clerk’s office after the entire Election Administration office resigned in August,” Taylor said in an email. “Most of our agency’s inspectors are former county election officials themselves, so they have the ability to catch mistakes before they happen and make sure proper chain-of-custody protocols and Texas Election Code laws are followed.”

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo issued a statement in response to the secretary of state’s letter: “The County Attorney and our Elections Administrator are taking a close look at the allegations made in the letter and will respond as legally required and appropriate, but all indications are that the allegations are unremarkable.”

According to the letter, the Attorney General’s office also will dispatch a task force to Harris County that will be “available at all times during the election period in order to immediately respond to any legal issues identified by Secretary of State, inspectors, poll watchers, or voters.”

It was not immediately clear if the task force was a first-time initiative for this year’s midterm election. The Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Christina Beeler, a voting rights staff attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, called the letter an intimidation tactic.

“The AG’s office and the secretary of state are trying to intimidate election officials, election workers and voters in Harris County,” Beeler said. “We have no reason to trust that the secretary of state or the attorney general are acting in good faith. They support election deniers and spread lies and misinformation about the election themselves.”

Beeler questioned the attorney general office’s decision to send a task force to Harris County, particularly in an election cycle when Attorney General Ken Paxton is running for reelection.

“The only county that we are aware of that the AG’s office is targeting is Harris County,” Beeler said. “The AG’s office saying that they are going to send in the AG’s own staff members to police an election in which he’s on the ballot creates an obvious conflict of interest.”

You can see the letter here. A more detailed response from the Texas Civil Rights Project is here. I’m not going to get bogged down in the details here. There’s still no reason to trust the SOS. This matter could have been handled weeks, if not months ago, if indeed there is something that needs such a formality. And good Lord, inviting Ken Paxton to “dispatch a task force” is inviting the Big Bad Wolf to use a wrecking ball on the third pig’s brick house. Even if he himself wasn’t in an election that he could lose, he’d be far too conflicted to be allowed anywhere near this process. This is a bunch of hot garbage and should not be dignified with anything more than that as a response.

Our big mail ballot test is now underway

Oct 7th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Sure hope we do better this time.

Harris County officials on Monday urged residents to follow the correct mail voting guidance as the end-of-the-month deadline to apply for mail-in ballots for the 2022 midterm elections nears.

This year’s primary elections in March experienced a surge in mail ballot rejections due to voter confusion over new requirements passed under Senate Bill 1. The new law requires residents to provide their Texas drivers license number or Social Security number when applying for a mail ballot and on the envelope containing their completed ballot. The number must match the number associated with their voter registration.

The Texas Secretary of State earlier this year said voters could put both numbers on their ballots and applications to avoid having them rejected.

Across the state, more than 12 percent of all mail ballots – nearly 25,000 – were rejected during the primaries. The rate was six times what it was in the 2018 midterm election. In Harris County, the rejection rate reached 40 percent initially before falling to 19 percent.

Areas with sizable Black populations were 44 percent more likely to see their ballots rejected than heavily white areas, according to a New York Times analysis based on data by the Harris County election administrator’s office.

Ballot rejection numbers were driven down by the time of the primary runoffs after election officials in some counties included additional instructions about identification requirements with voters’ mail ballots.

[…]

Since the primaries, the Elections Administration Office has implemented new measures to ensure a smoother voter experience for the midterms, according to Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum. That includes the addition of customer support specialists to assist mail-in voters and dozens of community events to raise awareness of proper voting procedures, Tatum said.

As you know, I’ve blogged about this a lot – see here for the most recent entry. I was encouraged by the improvements in the two May elections, but there are still a lot of people who will be voting for the first time under the new law, and the potential for a lot of rejections remains. My older daughter, now attending college out of state, will get to experience it herself. I hope these efforts have the desired effect. If you or someone you know will be voting by mail for the first time this fall, follow the instructions and use both the drivers license number and the SSN unless you know for sure which number you used on your voter registration. Don’t let your ballot get tossed out. KUHF has more.

Meet Clifford Tatum

Sep 8th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Harris County’s new Elections Administrator has a chat with the Chron’s Jen Rice about his new job and the fact that early voting starts in less than seven weeks.

Why did you start working in elections and why do you continue doing it?

I started out with the Georgia Secretary of State as a securities enforcement attorney. And after a couple of years, enforcing the securities law, the elections division needed a staff attorney. So I became the assistant director of legal affairs for the state elections division, which then worked with the Georgia Secretary of State on a number of issues related to the state election board, election law enforcement, election code enforcement. And I guess you could say that … I kind of got bit by the public service bug, and that foray into the elections division in 2002 has turned into a lifetime of public service. I enjoy the fact that I’m supporting democracy and helping voters express their voice.

When election-related topics come up at Harris County Commissioners Court meetings, two of the commissioners typically raise the argument that elections should be run by elected officials, not an appointed election administrator, which was the model used in Harris County until 2020. Do you have a response to that criticism?

If we talk about the the county clerk who was running the election side of the process, they were responsible for the election side, but they had to get the information to actually conduct the election from the tax assessor. The tax assessor was responsible for the voter registration side. At the end of the day, you’re looking to two separate entities for accountability. And that gap allows for there to be this flux of, what really happened here? So, combining the two offices, you avoid that. It now becomes a single unit that’s responsible for the entire operation. And you actually have a greater level of accountability because both operations are now under the same unit and the information flows much better because there’s not a go-between.

The mail ballot rejection rate is an ongoing issue in Harris County. What is your plan for getting the mail ballot rejection rate down and to what extent are you expecting to be able to address that for this election?

The good news is that the team here has now experienced the new mail ballot requirements for now, I think, three elections. We’ve made a lot of internal strides on how to assist voters in making sure they provide the correct information to allow their ballot not to be rejected. And then if they, for whatever reasons, fail to include that information, we’ve identified internal procedures to immediately respond back to the voter, highlighting what needs to be corrected in order for that ballot to be resolved and counted. The unfortunate aspect about all of that is time. If a voter waits too late, then there’s a likelihood that the voter can’t cure an issue if they didn’t provide the correct information.

I’m fairly optimistic that we’ll have a good experience this fall. Some of the factors on which Tatum will be judged are how well the equipment works and how easily equipment errors are overcome, how long the lines are, how many mail ballots are rejected, and how long it takes to see results and updates on Election Night. My hope is that he and his office will communicate quickly and effectively when there are any issues – it’s a big county, probably over a million people will be voting, there will be issues – so that at least everyone will have a chance to be informed and make adjustments. I intend to do an interview with him myself at some point, but that can wait until after this election.

This is why elections administrators are under attack

Aug 19th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

What a lousy thing to do right now.

Harris County’s new elections administrator has not taken office yet, but the Harris County GOP is already trying to shape his reputation.

On Wednesday, State Senator Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, tweeted an image of records showing Clifford Tatum has a federal tax lien of more than $100,000. Bettencourt questioned Tatum’s ability to run the office based on his tax records. According to the tweet, the records were obtained July 5, the date Tatum’s selection was announced.

The Internal Revenue Service filed the $108,209 lien against Tatum last October.

In response to Bettencourt’s tweet, Tatum said in a statement: “This is a personal tax matter and not related to my career as an elections administrator. I have been in touch with the IRS and expect the matter to be resolved by the end of the year. I have been a public servant for over 20 years and my personal life has never impacted my professional career.”

Tatum was selected by a unanimous vote of the five-member Harris County Election Commission in July.

[…]

On Tuesday, Harris County GOP Chair Cindy Siegel was the only person on the five-member Harris County Election Commission to vote against final approval of Tatum, which could not be completed until after he had established residency in Harris County. The commission met briefly to take the vote and adjourned in under 10 minutes.

“Why did the four Democrats on the Election Commission shut down debate on this yesterday?” Siegel said in a statement on Wednesday. “Why didn’t the recruiter do their job and disclose issues with Mr. Tatum’s background before the original offer was voted on? I’ve been asking the paid recruiter and the county attorney’s staff about this for a month.”

In response, Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee issued a statement: “The interview, offer, and selection process for the new elections administrator was thorough and all members of the Elections Commission participated. Mr. Tatum’s experience speaks for itself, and I look forward to working with him.”

See here for the background. Personal tax issues are standard fodder in election campaigns, mostly for the purpose of casting someone as untrustworthy or irresponsible. This isn’t an election, though, it’s a job application, and and having a personal tax issue is generally not an obstacle to getting hired. If there’s evidence that Tatum was dishonest about this to the recruiter and/or the Commission, then bring it forward and we can evaluate that. If not, if he answered honestly any questions he might have been asked about this, then it’s not that much different than telling me he’s got a big unpaid balance on his credit cards. Not great from a personal finance perspective, but not relevant to the job he’s been hired to do.

Also, too. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you’re out there being a big public supporter of Ken Paxton and The Former Guy, dismissing all criticism as mere partisan attacks, I’m not very likely to take seriously your complaints about some other guy’s back taxes. We all love throwing the word “hypocrisy” around, but maybe try a little self-awareness. I’m just saying.

And look, while no public servant is above criticism or having their conduct scrutinized, now is maybe not the best time to be pointing and screaming at election officials for things that have nothing to do with running elections. Election officials around the country and right here in Texas are besieged by violent threats and harassment from the people that Paul Bettencourt is talking to when he says this stuff. Someone is going to get attacked, even killed, if this keeps up. Could you maybe refrain from throwing gas on the fire for a little while? Is that so damn much to ask?

Some ideas for improving elections in Harris County

Jul 8th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Put it on the new guy’s to do list.

When Harris County’s new elections administrator starts the job next month, he will have less than three months to get ready before polls open on Oct. 24 for early voting in the November election. On top of the tight timeline, he will run his first Harris County election under intense scrutiny from political insiders who will watch to see whether the county repeats its mistakes from the March primary.

There is work to be done to prevent those and other missteps in the upcoming November election, according to a new report commissioned by the county to look for weak spots in the March primary. The findings point to numerous changes Harris County could make, such as improving training and resources for workers and voters, strengthening recruitment of election workers and streamlining operations.

[…]

The draft report from the research firm Fors Marsh Group offers a glimpse behind the scenes of the primary election — and an accounting of the many challenges the county elections office faces as employees adapt to new leadership, new voting machines and new state laws.

Before Commissioners Court created the appointed elections administrator in October 2020, the county clerk and tax assessor-collector managed voter registration and elections in Harris County. Longoria took on the newly-created position just as the county began to roll out its new voting machines in May 2021.

According to the report, executives at Hart InterCivic — the company that makes the county’s voting machines — pointed to several reasons behind difficulties in the March primary, such as “the transition of electronic to paperbased voting, compounded by the creation of a new Elections Office, the pandemic, and the lack of funding for execution of an effective training and voter education effort.”

A survey of Harris County election judges and poll workers included in the report showed 91 percent were satisfied with the instructors who trained them and the answers they received. However, only 66 percent of those who served as election judges in March thought the training was sufficient, while 35 percent of first-time election judges and poll workers said they did not feel adequately prepared to serve in the election.

Voters would benefit from training on the new machines, too. According to the report, however, “much of the funding initially planned for education and outreach had to be repurposed as part of the office’s internal budgeting process in order to meet other pressing elections needs.”

There also is room to improve how election judges and poll workers are recruited, according to the report. Many election workers were recruited at the last minute for the March primary, the report revealed; 30% were recruited three to four weeks before the election, and 29% recruited one to two weeks before the election.

The report indicates Harris County could streamline its election operations by switching to joint primaries. In Harris County, the Democratic and Republican primaries are operated separately at each voting location, with separate lines and separate machines. In the March primary election, the county had 90 voting locations open during early voting and 375 locations on Election Day, but the report suggested the county really operates double those numbers since each polling place housed two separate primaries: “This system effectively meant setting up and managing 750 polling locations on Election Day, each with its own equipment pick-ups and drop-offs.”

Honestly, a lot of this sounds like growing pains to me, with adjustments needed to get used to new voting machines and the new Election Administrator office. I haven’t gone looking for a copy of the report, but I would also put the issue of collecting election results on Election Day, which also needs a clear answer from the Secretary of State office about what is legal. There’s nothing here that suggests to me that this is a big broken mess that’s going to require a total redesign of the entire system. More training of election workers and of voters on the new machines, both of which will require some more funding, is the big takeaway. That sounds very doable to me, and it sounds like a clear and measurable mission for the new Elections Administrator. Welcome to the job, Clifford Tatum.

We have a new Election Administrator

Jul 6th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

From the inbox:

Harris County’s election commission today named Clifford D. Tatum the county’s next Elections Administrator. He is scheduled to take over from interim EA, Beth Stevens.

Mr. Tatum is the chief information security officer for the DC Board of Elections in Washington, D.C. He brings 16 years of election experience to the EA position.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in Administration of Justice from Guilford College and a Juris Doctorate from Western Michigan University’s Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing.

In response to the selection, Harris County Democratic Party Chair Odus Evbagharu issued the following statement:

“Following a nationwide search, the election commission is thrilled to select Clifford D. Tatum as the county’s new elections administrator.

“The commission worked well together to reach our decision, and Mr. Tatum was unanimously selected in a 5-0 vote.

“Mr. Tatum has an impressive background in leading elections — currently with the DC Board of Elections and prior to that as general counsel for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. We are excited to bring him on board.

“Mr. Tatum’s elections experience — combined with a background in information security and elections law — make him perfectly suited for the Elections Administrator position, and we look forward to welcoming him to Harris County.”

See here, here, and here for the background. The above is a press release from the HCDP. As of 5:30 PM when I draft this, I’ve not seen a news story yet, though there’s this tweet from Judge Hidalgo saying that his hiring was unanimous. I’m sure there will be some coverage shortly. In the meantime, the Google machine found this biography for Cliff Tatum from the US Election Assistance Commission, and this WaPo story from 2011 about Tatum taking over as the head of the DC Board of Elections. He sounds like a solid hire, and he certainly has the background and experience you’d want for the person taking this job, especially with the next election looming. I’m sure we’ll learn more about him soon. In the meantime, welcome to Houston, Clifford Tatum.

UPDATE: And here’s the Chron story, which doesn’t have much in the way of new information but which does remind us that “Tatum’s appointment will be confirmed in a vote at a later meeting pending a background check and after he meets a residency requirement to become a voter under the Texas Election Code”.