Harris County Commissioner demands overdue report on alleged flawed elections
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas - Harris County's last two major elections have been plagued by mistakes and mistrust, driven by rule-busting delays in vote tabulation, shortages of ballot paper, malfunctioning machinery, and lingering allegations of selective suppression.
After a deeply problematic March primary triggered the removal of an election administrator, County leaders commissioned the consulting group, Fors Marsh, to troubleshoot the process.
SUGGESTED: Harris County: Couple accused of holding teen captive in their Humble home appears in court
More than 15 months have passed and Commissioners have yet to receive a report, a lack of analysis which clearly bothers Precinct 3's Tom Ramsey.
"Every voter in Harris County knows that we are having problems with our elections, so it's about time we figured this out, so we don't have problems with our elections," said Ramsey, who told FOX 26 the report was due in December and he still has not seen any findings.
DOWNLOAD THE FOX 26 HOUSTON APP BY CLICKING HERE
With the next major election just two and half months away, Judge Lina Hidalgo downplayed the call for urgency in regard to the Fors Marsh analysis suggesting the last election was not fundamentally flawed.
"I don't to feed any kind of sense that we need to wait on this to find out whether systemic problems happened. Because we don't. We know there wasn't a systemic issue. Conspiracy theorists have been fishing for evidence of a systemic problem through the courts, through the public sphere. There hasn't been anything there," said Hidalgo.
Critics say voters have no idea what caused the numerous problems impacting the November mid-term because Judge Hidalgo and Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee have refused to release all the election records, and are waging a court battle to prevent the government documents from reaching the public for review.
Ramsey's office tells FOX 26, Commissioners Court appropriated $125,000 for the review in April 2022.