Hays County Commissioners Move Forward With Citizens’ Election Commission

By, Terra Rivers, Managing Editor

On Tuesday, the Hays County Commissioners Court discussed and considered possible action to create an all-inclusive Citizens’ Election Commission to establish a diverse county-wide representation.

Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra and Commissioner Walt Smith met last week to dive deeper into the topic and “flush out” the details regarding the proposed commission.

Linda Calvert, President of the League of Women Voters of Hays County, spoke on the agenda item and thanked the commission for moving forward with the idea.

During her comments, Calvert discussed issues and ideas that officials may not be aware of or had not considered.

For example, Calvert said last year, voters had experienced confusion and uncertainty on where to get help with a voting problem; ultimately, the voters had reached out to Calvert in the hopes of getting the problem resolved, but even she had been unable to find a way to have the problem addressed.

“I’m pretty skilled at searching the websites, but I couldn’t find a way of escalating this so that this problem could be answered,” Calvert said. “I’m simply saying that there are a number of things that I think this group should be considering…I see this particular commission, committee whatever it is, as a way of improving the entire voting process.”

Becerra said the mission of the commission would be “to serve Hays County as an independent advisory commission in the area of effectively identifying voting centers, voting center locations and addressing the locations after each location period.”

The goals of the commission are to evaluate the distribution and effectiveness of the early voting polls and vote centers and recommend changes as needed.

The commission would be designated to elect its own leadership.

Alex Villalobos, Chief of Staff, gave commissioners a brief presentation on what Becerra and Smith had come up with.

Villalobos said the minimum the commission would meet was twice a year, but it would be up to the commission’s discretion if they felt they needed any additional meetings to discuss and review data.

Smith said the reasoning behind the minimum meetings, the court could ask the commission to meet in late May and late November after the local and general elections to review the recommendations from municipalities, school districts and other entities they represent and the data from the elections.

Smith went on to say the proposed meeting schedule would allow the commission to present their findings in mid-July to the commissioners’ court and provide the court with a set amount of lead time before polling locations were set for the November election.

Members would include representatives from:

• One Representative from Hays CISD
• One Representative from San Marcos CISD
• One Representative from Dripping Springs ISD
• One Representative from Wimberley ISD
• One Representative from each municipality including San Marcos, Kyle, Buda, Dripping Springs and Wimberley
• One Representative from each County Party Chair including Democratic, Republican and Texas State University Student Party Chairs
• One Representative from the Rural Community
• One Representative of the disabled community
• One Representative from the League of Women Voters
• Two Representatives appointed citizen representatives per commissioner.

Villalobos said the Elections Office will act as a technical advisor to the commission.

Smith said he was ultimately supportive of the no elected officials on the commission providing the court with an example regarding an at-large member of a school board or city council, who could choose locations based on personal bias.

“If you have an at-large school board position or an at-large city council position…it would incentivize them saying, ‘Okay, well, this is the church that I go to and this is the school where my kid goes to school, I want polling places in those two locations,” Smith said. “In an at-large race that could be very problematic, and so it’s for that reasoning that we wanted someone who was an employee that’s beholden to their entire governing board.”

Becerra said he had supported the idea of elected officials serving on the commission as they were elected representatives, but after his discussion with Smith and hearing his reasoning, he agreed that no elected officials was the best decision.

Commissioners asked each school board and city council to pass a resolution identifying their representative for the commission.

Villalobos said the resolution would provide structure for their representative to report back to their governing board.

Commissioners will return at a future meeting to appoint their two representatives and make a consensus appointment for the rural and disabled communities’ representatives.