On the one-year anniversary of Harvey, Harris County residents are being asked to cast a ballot Saturday on a $2.5 billion bond proposal to address the region's flooding issues.
Only 92,000 ballots were cast in early voting on an issue that could potentially impact 4.5 million people.
“Vote your conscience, do what you believe, but there is a problem when you have an off-year, non-uniform election date when we're less than 90 days away from the general election date, just to give everybody a chance to cast their vote when people know there's an election going on,” says Charles Blain at the Houston Bureau for Empower Texans.
“They wanted to make sure they knew who was going to come out and vote for it and encourage the people who supported it to get out,” he says. “You see it happen with school districts a lot, it's definitely a strategy to get a measure passed.”
The Harris County Republican Party also opposed the timing of the election, but Chairman Paul Simpson says it is what it is.
“Amend the constitution like we did last year with probably fewer voters than are going to turn out to this bond election,” he says. “Strange time, but the governor agreed it was an emergency, so it's important people turn out because it will affect our future.”
Polls are open 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday.