Elections in Harris County have been under fire for the better half of a decade, with multiple lawsuits filed over the 2022 election cycle. That cycle, which put rampant fraud on full display, has opened up other investigations into just how Texas' biggest county operates. On the heels of issues in 2018 regarding Harris County allowing P.O. boxes to be listed on voter registrations, the state passed a law banning the practice in 2021.
Low and behold, here we are in 2025, and Harris County is accused of breaking state law and allowing the P.O. box debacle to continue. State Senator Paul Bettencourt of Houston has since sent a letter to the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector and the Voter Registrar, identified multiple instances of this issue happening. There have been multiple registrations of boxes, and even people listing commercial businesses as an address.
Holly Hansen of the Texan says despite state law and displeasure of the public, Harris County is just doing whatever it wants to do.
"We continue to see quite a number of these registrations that list a post office box...some list a commercial business as a location instead of a residential location," she says.
Again, this is nothing new for Harris County, which has seen questionable results time and again in recent years. Some of it has been cleaned up, but as evidenced by Sen. Bettencourt's findings, not all of it has been fixed.
It is not just a small sample size either.
"They have identified for sure a little over 100...but by extrapolating the samples, they estimate closer to about 3,000 cases or more," says Hansen. "The problem is we do have races in Harris County that are often decided by very narrow margins."
Plenty of elections in Harris County in recent years have gone to runoffs or have triggered recounts. As mentioned, many of those races ended in lawsuits over illegal ballot harvesting and fraudulent numbers.
While 3,000 cases in a county of five million people seems like a drop in the bucket, it really is not.
"In 2022, we had a race that was decided by 449 votes," Hansen says.
All of this opens up Harris County to facing more legal troubles. Texas AG Ken Paxton has sued the county on multiple subjects in recent months, and Governor Greg Abbott has threatened to pull state funding from the county.
According to the 2021 state law, the state can withhold funding for not cleaning up the voter rolls. The county clearly has not done so, as there are still fraudulent addressed listed for thousands of registered voters.
As the investigation continues, Harris County might see some serious consequences for not performing a simple task.
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