An audit of the 2022 primary election in Harris County, Texas, shows that the county has continued to have election difficulties, with Republicans reporting more problems than Democrats.
Although the report, commissioned by Harris County to Fors Marsh Group (FMG) was submitted to the county in 2022, it was only just released to the public.
Last month, County Commissioner Tom Ramsey (R-Pct. 3) queried the missing report that was promised in January. “Every voter in Harris County knows that we are having problems with our elections, so it’s about time we figured this out, so we don’t have problems with our elections," he said.
Predominantly Democratic-leaning Harris County, which includes the city of Houston, experienced significant election issues in both the 2020 and 2022 elections.
In 2020, statewide election issues forced the Secretary of State to conduct an audit that found Harris County had "very serious issues in the handling of electronic media." One of the issues was that at least 14 mobile ballot boxes did not have proper chain of custody records for 184,999 ballots.
The county created the elections administrator office in 2020, which began operations shortly after the November presidential election. Despite spending tens of millions of dollars to overhaul the county’s election system, at least 10,000 ballots weren’t counted in the March 2022 primary election, causing the first administrator to resign.
Under the new administrator, reported irregularities also occurred during the November 2022 general election, such as electronic machines jamming and paper ballots not being delivered to mostly Republican precincts.
Harris County requested an evaluation of the administration of the March 2022 primary election. The evaluation aimed 1) to document issues encountered during the primary election, and 2) to identify underlying factors that contributed to those issues and make recommendations for improving the county’s election administration moving forward. Reported irregularities also occurred during the November 2022 general election, such as electronic machines jamming and paper ballots not being delivered to mostly Republican precincts.
In May, the Texas state legislature passed Senate Bill 1750, which eliminates the Harris County elections administrator position and returns the management of elections to an elected county clerk and tax assessor-collector. The law is set to go into effect on Sept. 1, but the county is suing to temporarily block it, claiming that it would disrupt elections and undermine local officials.
