ASSOCIATED PRESS
Signs which will be posted at Harris County polling sites are lined up at election headquarters Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott raised a threat against Harris County on Thursday, saying state officials should take control of its elections.
Abbott made the threat while referencing a recent Houston Public Media report about Harris County’s tax office finding more than 100 voter registrations linked to private post office boxes in violation of state laws aimed at bolstering election integrity. The Republican governor wrote in a social media post that the state’s most populous county, which has become a Democratic stronghold in recent years, “should be stripped of operating elections” and “potential legal charges should also be considered.”
In a statement Friday, newly appointed interim Harris County Attorney Jonathan Fombonne said the governor has no authority to seize control of the county’s elections or pursue criminal charges against its elections officials. He said the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector and Voter Registrar’s Office has already addressed the issue that was first raised in November by Houston-based state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, whose complaint prompted an investigation by the Texas Secretary of State’s Office.
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“This is a baseless attack on local control and the democratic process,” Fombonne said. “Harris County voters deserve better than political theater that undermines confidence in our elections.”
Tax Assessor-Collector Annette Ramirez was commended by Harris County commissioners on Thursday for quickly addressing complaints that asserted more than 120 voters registered their home addresses to P.O. boxes in the Houston area. The secretary of state’s office in a Dec. 23 letter also acknowledged the county office’s efforts to address the concerns.
The commissioners’ Thursday discussion happened during a standing item about compliance with a state law authored by Bettencourt, a Republican, that targets Democrat-leaning Harris County.
“We have instituted a process in our office to flag those addresses that we know are commercial P.O. boxes,” Ramirez said. “So once it is brought to our attention that an address could possibly be a commercial P.O. box, we do an investigation. We make sure that it’s not a residential address. Sometimes there’s P.O. boxes below an apartment complex, and they are residential addresses. So we have to make sure, and moving forward, if we receive a voter application with that address that’s flagged, we will immediately send them a request for them to confirm their address.”
There were more than 2.6 million registered voters in Harris County as of November 2024, according to the secretary of state’s office. Neither Bettencourt nor Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson has alleged the voter address issue led to ballots being illegally cast in recent elections or impacted the outcome of any races.
State law generally prohibits the use of post office boxes as voter registration addresses, but there are exceptions for active duty military members and their families. There are also some exceptions for members of the public with safety concerns, such as domestic violence survivors and judges who want to keep their home addresses private.
Ramirez said her office found that 25% of the addresses that were flagged by the secretary of state’s Dec. 23 letter were located outside of Harris County.
Harris County elections have come under scrutiny by state officials since the county made efforts to expand voter participation during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, with initiatives such as drive-through voting, which was outlawed by the state legislature in 2021. After issues with ballot paper shortages at some Harris County polling places on Election Day in 2022, Bettencourt and other Republican state lawmakers in 2023 passed bills to bolster election integrity.
One piece of legislation eliminated Harris County’s elections administrator position and turned over voter registration control to the tax assessor-collector’s office. Since that law passed, the Harris County Clerk’s Office has administered elections.
Lawmakers also advanced a bill that would grant state oversight of county elections under specific circumstances through a complaint process — allowing Texas officials to override the local elected officials.
Another layer of oversight imposed on Harris County could restrict state funding for the voter registrar.
During a press briefing on Thursday, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said there’s a clear effort to politicize Harris County’s elections in order to lessen its credibility as a county.
“That’s of course because they’re not in charge of Harris County,” Hidalgo, a Democrat, said of state officials. “We are. I am the county judge, and they don’t like that.”