Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s recent threat to take over Harris County elections in the wake of what critics say is a minor voter registration error is likely nothing more than political theater, attorneys and public officials opine.
Abbott’s remarks on January 8 — referring to Harris County as “a repeat violator of election integrity” — weren’t surprising for those who have heard the Republican governor repeatedly criticize elections in the largest county in Texas, which traditionally votes blue. However, his latest missive doesn’t make sense, according to University of Houston political science lecturer Nancy Sims.
Abbott wrote on social media last week, “They should be stripped of operating elections, and state officials should take over. Potential legal charges should also be considered.”
The governor was reacting to recent allegations from Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, that about 100 people were registered to vote by using a post office box rather than a home address, and many more are suspected of doing so. A law that passed in 2022 prohibits the use of P.O. boxes on voter registration cards but some exceptions exist.
Sims pointed out that the concern was about 100 questionable addresses in a county with 2.6 million registered voters. Some have said they use a P.O. box because they travel frequently, although they maintain a primary residence in Harris County. In a complaint to the Secretary of State’s Office, Bettencourt said the addresses were illegal but he did not make claims of voter fraud.
Sims questioned why a state takeover would be necessary when Republican leaders are apparently concerned about voter registration rolls, not how elections are conducted.
Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth was first elected in 2020 and her performance has been lauded by her peers in county government. Tax Assessor-Collector and Voter Registrar Annette Ramirez has been in her role since January 2025 and perhaps inherited voter rolls that need to be updated but has said she is following the law and addressing the concerns raised by Bettencourt.
Sims said Abbott and Bettencourt appear to be “mixing up voter registration with the administration of elections.”
“Those are two different office-holders with two different jobs,” she said. “Since Teneshia Hudspeth took over, there haven’t been any problems with elections.”
“I think it was an idle threat,” she said of Abbott’s remarks. “It was more of a political statement than an actual plan of action.”
Some have surmised that politics is at play. The governor said last year he wants to turn Harris County “dark red” and is planning to spend a significant amount of his $90 million war chest in Houston on his bid for an unprecedented fourth term.
Harris County’s top officials, including Hudspeth, Ramirez, the county judge, Houston mayor and a majority of the commissioners court, are Democrats. County Attorney Jonathan Fombonne, who was appointed by the commissioners court the very day Abbott made his remarks, said the governor has no authority to seize control of Harris County elections or pursue charges against election officials.
“My office works closely with Tax Assessor-Collector and Voter Registrar Annette Ramirez, and her office has done exactly what it was supposed to do under state law, as the Secretary of State’s office itself has acknowledged,” Fombonne said in an emailed statement. “This is a baseless attack on local control and the democratic process. Harris County voters deserve better than political theater that undermines confidence in our elections.”
Harris County Attorney Jonathan Fombonne says the governor has no authority to seize control of Harris County elections. Credit: Harris County Attorney’s Office
Fombonne, a longtime deputy county attorney, succeeds Christian Menefee, who resigned the office to run as a Democrat for Congressional District 18. Menefee is in a runoff with former Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards, scheduled for January 31. Abbott again invoked his narrative of “No county in Texas does a worse job of conducting elections than Harris County” by delaying the CD 18 special election by eight months after the death of former U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner.
David Froomkin, a law professor at the University of Houston, said Secretary of State Jane Nelson can only lawfully take over an election if she finds, after conducting an investigation, that there is good cause to believe that the county has “a recurring pattern of problems with election administration or voter registration.”
“A recurring pattern of problems would need to be established with sufficient evidence to meet the good cause standard,” Froomkin said. “It seems very unlikely that what has been alleged so far would be sufficient to meet that standard. For one thing, the election code permits voters to register with a mailing address in some circumstances. If the secretary of state were to seek to impose administrative oversight, ultimately a court would have to determine the adequacy of the evidence.”
Hudspeth said in an email that her office is responsible for conducting elections and performs those duties in accordance with the Texas Election Code.
“The County Clerk’s Office does not maintain or manage voter registration rolls,” she said. “Voter registration and the maintenance of voter rolls are handled by the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector, who serves as the Voter Registrar. The County Clerk’s Office remains committed to administering elections with transparency, accuracy, and integrity, and to ensuring voters understand the distinct roles of county election operations and voter registration responsibilities.”
Harris County hired its first elections administrator in 2020, taking the responsibility of running elections away from the county clerk. It didn’t go well, Sims said, and the employee lasted about 20 months on the job.
“A lot of Republican precincts ran out of ballots, the paper to fill the ballot, at their locations,” Sims said. “That was under the elections administrator. So the county fired that person and then Paul Bettencourt passed the state law abolishing the elections administrator for Harris County only and moved elections back to the county clerk.”
Bettencourt’s 2022 bill that dismantled the Harris County elections administrator’s office also allows the state state to order “administrative oversight” of local elections in counties with a population of over 4 million — which essentially means just Harris County. State inspectors were assigned to monitor the handling and counting of ballots in Harris County in 2024.
Critics said at the time that Bettencourt’s oversight legislation was an attempt by Republicans to exert more control over elections in a blue county in a traditionally red state.
Hudspeth has supervised more than a dozen elections without incident since accusations of election rigging and voter fraud — later found to be meritless — were made in 2022, after elections were returned to her office.
Secretary of State Nelson, a former Republican senator, was appointed by Abbott in 2023. When the P.O. Box issue arose late last year, Nelson said in a letter that Harris County made “diligent and timely efforts” to respond to Bettencourt’s complaint by contacting the identified voters to begin verifying their residency.
Last year, the county invested $1.2 million for a 10-year lease on a massive elections headquarters facility on Morales Road near Bush Intercontinental Airport.
“I call it casino-level security,” Sims said. “They have cameras in the ceiling all over the building that watch the mail ballot opening and all the election procedures. [Hudspeth] built that and elections have run much more smoothly. It’s impossible to cheat at this point. It’s frustrating. When I read [about Abbott’s comments], I felt like there wasn’t clarity between voter registration and elections administration.”
Teneshia Hudspeth is pictured at an October press conference at the Harris County elections headquarters. Credit: April Towery
Democratic county commissioners Lesley Briones and Rodney Ellis also scoffed at the notion of a state elections takeover.
“Governor Abbott’s false claim takes direct aim at Harris County voters by threatening a state takeover of our elections over a matter the Texas Secretary of State has already acknowledged was handled appropriately,” Ellis said. “This escalation is not about election integrity; it’s about intimidation and control. Texans deserve free and fair elections governed transparently and locally — without the governor manipulating the rules to silence communities and weaken our democracy.”
Briones said Harris County is committed to the integrity of its voter rolls and has been diligent about following the law.
“Governor Abbott either doesn’t understand this issue or he is intentionally misrepresenting the law in his continued efforts to undermine our democracy and erode our voting rights,” she said in a statement.
This article appears in Private: Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2026.
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