New Software, Bad Geography Catch Houston Voters in a Pinch

By Greg Moses

ILCA Online /
IndyMedia Austin / Houston / NorthTexas / L.A.

Better software combined with bad geography are the best explanations offered by Harris County voting officials for the large number of voters tagged as voting from out of county in the recently contested election for House District 149.

Comparing four years worth of reports of alleged illegal voting in Harris County to the Dec. report about voters of House District 149, the most striking result is an apparent increase in voters identified as moving out of county.

One has to go back to the last Presidential election of 2000 to find numbers that begin to compare with the 139 voters identified as voting from out of county in the hotly contested race for House District 149. Although 135 voters were listed as out-of-county during the 2002 general election, that was a county-wide total. HD 149 hugs only the edge of the western county line.

Reasons for the reported increase in out-of-county voters are twofold explains Ed Johnson, Manager of Harris County Voter Registration, in a conference call Thursday afternoon.

“About a year and a half ago we switched computer systems from a mainframe to a PC-based system with software provided by VOTEC,” explains Johnson. The new VEMACS software supplied by VOTEC, also used in places such as Cuyahoga County, Ohio, allows voting officials to more quickly and precisely identify the jurisdiction of addresses supplied by voters when they fill out statements of residence on election day.

“That state representative district has the longest county border of any in Texas,” explains Johnson. So by shape of sheer geography, the odds of voters crossing the county line are greater in HD 149 than anywhere else in Texas.

“All these people assumed they were voting in the same county,” explains Harris County Director of Voter Registration George Hammerlein, during the same conference call. He says the county line gets to be tricky business in some places and was at times confusing even to investigators during the recent election contest.

“Many of these voters live in condos or apartment complexes,” explains Hammerlein, so they would not be aware of where the property tax is paid.

Once again, if we take these explanations into account, it would appear that allegations of widespread voter misbehavior in House District 149 were in many ways both misleading and insensitive, taking an usually bad situation and exploiting it as an example of voter intent to steal an election.

The office of Harris County Voter Registrar Paul Bettencourt on Thursday faxed copies of cover memos sent during the past four years to the Harris County District Attorney following review of election materials after every major election.

The reviews are usually completed in March, April, or July of the year after the election. Following is a list of tables comparing the Dec. 20 report for HD 149 with county-wide summary reports from previous years:

The hard diagonal edge to House District 149 is the Harris County border with Fort Bend County.