The election failures by Democrats here in Harris County has become a national story.
The Washington Post is reporting that Harris County Democrat District Attorney Kim Ogg has begun investigating possible criminal conduct during the election and has even requested assistance from the Texas Rangers.
“Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, a Democrat, has begun investigating possible criminal conduct during the election and on Monday requested assistance from the Texas Rangers, according to an email first reported by the New York Times and obtained by The Washington Post.
In the email, Ogg said her office had received a referral from the Texas secretary of state about “alleged irregularities” in the county that “potentially may include criminal conduct.” Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, confirmed that it had referred complaints to Ogg’s office. Violations of Texas election code carry misdemeanor penalties for failing to provide election supplies.
Monitors from the secretary of state, attorney general and U.S. Justice Department were stationed at Harris County polling places on Election Day. Aryele Bradford, a Justice Department spokeswoman, declined to comment on their findings. The Texas attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment.”
The Post article details the numbers of issues seen on election day.
"By 3:30 p.m. on Election Day, Cody McCubbin was down to the last of 1,200 paper ballots at the polling place he was running in suburban Cypress, frantically contacting counterparts at other locations for more.
“We were texting each other and saying, ‘Who’s running out of ballots?’ And we all were,” said McCubbin, 52, a financial manager at a pipeline company.
McCubbin, a Republican, said he had to shut down the polling place that he has run for the past four years for more than an hour, sending about 100 voters away. Election officials provided him with 200 extra ballots at about 4 p.m., but they lasted only an hour, McCubbin said, before he had to turn voters away again.
“It disenfranchises everyone,” he said.
Similar problems across Harris County — a Democratic stronghold in a Republican-run state — have prompted outrage, especially among local and state Republicans.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has called for a criminal investigation by the state’s attorney general, secretary of state and Texas Rangers into “widespread problems” and “allegations of improprieties” in Harris County’s election. He noted that voting in the nation’s third-largest county — home to 4.8 million people — was plagued by understaffing, broken voting machines and paper ballot shortages, even though turnout was lower than county officials expected."
Read the rest of the piece here.