May 4, 2023

A Texas bill that would abolish the elections administrator in Harris County is inching closer and closer to final passage after a Monday vote moved the legislation out of the Texas House Elections Committee. Via The Houston Chronicle:

The measures call for the "abolition" of election administrators in counties with populations larger than 1,000,000—a metric that only applies to Harris County, which Republican state lawmakers have taken a keen interest in in the aftermath of the 2022 midterm elections.

Local and conservatives have keyed in on paper ballot shortages and a number of voting machine malfunctions that were reported at a small number of polling locations on Election Day— incidents that prompted a district judge to extend voting by 1 hour at Harris County polls. Since then, the Harris County Elections Office report concluded that they couldn't determine if potential voters were pushed away because of the issues at polling centers.

In the aftermath, a number of Houston Republican candidates who lost their races filed lawsuits against the county, alleging that those issues led to them losing on election day. They have requested to overturn the election results and redo their races.

Republicans claim the law deals with problems during the 2022 Harris County Election Day. The real problem, though, is that Republicans just lost!

A report published by Houston Chronicle reporter Jen Rice earlier this month raised questions about the veracity of Republicans' claims, finding that of the county's 782 polling locations, only 20 reported having run out of paper at any point on Election Day. Additionally, the report found zero evidence that voters were systemically disenfranchised.

We know what's going on here, it's happening all over the country in states where the GOP controls the legislature. Republicans know they can't win, so they're just going to fix the elections and make them come out as Republican wins. Problem solved!

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