Harris County elections administrator resigns after thousands of primary ballots found uncounted

By Bethany Blankley | The Center Square

Eight days after Texas’ March 1 primary election, Harris County, the largest county in Texas, is grappling with what critics say is a Texas-sized election mess.

County Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria resigned Wednesday, two days after she was sued by the Harris County Republican Party (HCRP) over her mismanagement of the primary election. They sued after it took one week for Longoria to announce that county officials hadn’t counted at least 10,000 ballots.

The HCRP also announced Wednesday that another 175 uncounted ballots had been found.

But the problems don’t end or start there.

On Election Day, there were signs of trouble.

One resident posted a video on social media of a voting location in Harris County where only Democrats could vote. When asked where Republicans could vote, an official told him, “I don’t have staff so we are closed right now. You can vote Democrat but not Republican. I’m sorry.”

When many voters went to vote, they learned they couldn’t vote for county commissioners at all – and won’t be able to for six years unless a court overturns a redistricting map proposed by Democratic Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis.

The Democratic-controlled Harris County Court approved the map along party lines, which drastically carved up and altered Harris County.

Democratic Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Harris County were sued by fellow county commissioners, who argue it unconstitutionally disenfranchised more than one million voters in this election alone.

On election night, The Center Square noticed an anomaly with the Texas Secretary of State’s website. For at least two hours, only Democratic votes were being uploaded on its election portal while the percentage of counties reporting Republican votes remained stagnant at around 80 out of 254 counties reporting.

Meanwhile, Democratic votes continued to be added, with up to 80% of counties reporting during the same time period as the website refreshed every five minutes.

On election night, Harris County officials also couldn’t tally the votes in accordance with state law. Under Texas election code, counties are required to return election materials within 24 hours of the polls closing – by 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 2 in this election’s case. Harris County didn’t finish its unofficial vote count until after midnight Thursday into the early hours of March 4.

Even after the delay, county officials hadn’t counted roughly 6,000 Democratic and 4,000 Republican votes.

By the end of election night, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a former state senator who represented Houston, issued a statement.

“As the polls close across Texas, Harris County, the state’s largest and the nation’s third-largest county, responsible for over 10% of the statewide GOP primary turnout, announced they have train-wrecked the counting of votes during today’s election. [Harris County Judge Lina] Lina Hidalgo and the Democrats are responsible for this botched job,” he said. “The Democrats in Harris County made up their own rules last election. This election is proving to be a disaster.”

By Wednesday morning on March 9, an emergency court hearing was scheduled. Before the hearing, at a news conference, Harris County Republican Party Chairwoman Cindy Siegal announced that party officials found another 175 ballots that also hadn’t been counted – more than a week after Election Day. Officials asked the court for all of the uncounted votes to be counted.

“The Harris County Republican Party is going to take every step possible to protect the Harris County voters,” she said. She and others also called for independent oversight.

“Without independent oversight, these elections are at risk,” Bettencourt said, adding that both Republicans and Democrats have “had enough.”

“I’ve never seen an elections administrator allowed after an abysmal failure of this magnitude. And yet, that person’s going to stay another nearly four months,” he said, referring to Longoria, whose official resignation doesn’t take effect until July 1.

Democratic Party Chair Odus Evbagharu also called for a post-election review.

“We will look at every measure and take any action possible to instill confidence in the voting process with our voters and election workers,” he said.

Hidalgo and the Democrat-dominated county election commission appointed Longoria in 2020. On Tuesday, Hidalgo said she’d communicated to Longoria the need for someone else to fill the role.

But Longoria’s position and office never should have been created, to begin with, the Texas Attorney General’s office argues. It sent a letter in December 2020 saying both were created illegally.

Hidalgo, the county commissioner’s court, and Longoria all ignored the Texas attorney general’s warning. More than a year later, the new office couldn’t manage a low-voter turnout primary election and was embroiled in chaos, critics contend.

Still, at the Harris County Commissioners Court meeting on Tuesday, Hidalgo and Democrat Commissioners Rodney Ellis and Adrian Garcia remained defiant, voting against returning election-related responsibilities to the elected county clerk and tax assessor, leaving them with Longoria.

Their decisions related to the 2020 election also led to multiple lawsuits and allegations of voter fraud.

The former Harris County clerk, who was in office for a only few months in 2020, was sued for drastically altering election procedures, including implementing drive-through voting that enabled potentially illegal votes to be cast and changing mail ballot procedures.

The Texas Supreme Court halted the voter mailing plan but it was too late to stop the drive-through voting that occurred in mostly Democratic districts.

In one of them, a 30+ year veteran Texas peace officer, Raymond Stewart, said he witnessed voter fraud. In a sworn affidavit he submitted to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, he described what he said he witnessed during early voting while he worked as a poll watcher. A copy of his three-page affidavit, along with photos, was obtained by The Center Square.

In it, he described how Harris County election workers scanned a stack of roughly 30 or more Texas driver’s licenses for drive-through voters at the North East Multi-Services Center.

He was eventually told to leave the polling station, he said because he was told he couldn’t collect evidence of voter fraud, according to the affidavit. Neither the County District Attorney’s Office nor the Attorney General’s Office launched an investigation into his allegations.

The Secretary of State was also sued in 2020 after Gov. Greg Abbott changed election law to extend early voting by one week, a move critics argued enabled voter fraud.

The election-related lawsuits in Harris County are ongoing.

There are at least two elections scheduled before Longoria’s official resignation date.

On May 7, there are two elections scheduled: the first for two statewide ballot propositions related to property taxes and a special election for Texas House seat 147 recently vacated by state Rep. Garnet Coleman. However, the date for this election hasn’t yet been changed because Democratic candidates running for the seat are heading to a runoff election.

The runoff election is scheduled May 24.

Other key races heading to a runoff election include 7 Republican congressional races, 7 Democratic congressional races, Democratic races for lieutenant governor, attorney general, and comptroller, Democratic races for state legislative and judicial seats, Republican races for attorney general, General Land Office, and Harris County judge, whose winner will run against Hidalgo in November.