Let's Talk Voter Suppression, Texas Style

Many Texans don't live in incorporated parts of the state. They don't have city councils or mayors to elect, they have "county commissioners" as their de-facto mayors.

Surprised by that sentence? That might be because at no point has Texas curriculum covered local government.

Read for another surprise?

Every year on the first Saturday in the month of May is an election.

Did you know that? 90% of you don't.

This is Texas style voter suppression, and it's been going on for decades.

So let's talk about the May Election cycle, an undemocratic edifice that I've been calling for legislators in Texas to dismantle for years.

NOTE: while my examples below are specific to the Harris County area, it's much worse elsewhere. In Walker County, I argued with the hospital district that ballot information could be divulged with an Open Records Request. They saw the light pretty quickly after that. To track down who represents specific voters, I've had to dig into maps on pdf in a few counties. Then there's the Brazoria County Surveyor brouhaha (Reference 1). Harris County happens to be where I truly started in learning Texas Government.

1) Local elections in the May Election cycle do not have to be posted in a central standard location (note: Harris County started posting these existing around 2016, but they don't have to).

Here's a specific example. Note the date: election was in 9 days, & I needed to research the details on the ballot I still didn't have. In this case, the election notice was posted in the window of a fire station facing FM 2920. It was an 8.5X11 sheet of paper facing an average traffic speed of 55 mph, located a fire truck's length away from the road.

2) Local elections for different offices can be held in different locations.

The only time I haven't had to drive to different locations to vote on the ballots for separate organizations was when ESD#7 and ESD#11 combined their ballots.

3) The full list of offices selected by voters does not exist in any single location.

As part of its services, Referee PAC does provide this list, but only for voters who ask for it. Here's why.

Go to this website & enter your home address to find out "Who Represents Me?" http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx....

Do you see my county commissioner on that list? Me neither. Now here's the stuff they don't teach you in school. First of all, this varies from county to county. In Harris County, you go to the Voter Street Search: https://voterregistration.harr...

After entering your address information, look at this part of the screen and click on "Info"

4) But that's not all of them. What's missing? Only the State Executive (from Governor to Railroad Commission), State judges (Supreme Court to Criminal Appeals), regional Courts of Appeals (Harris County & environs have both the 1st and 14th), District Courts (Harris County has Civil, Criminal, and Family), some county executive offices (see the image above, missing from the list are County Attorney, District Attorney, County Clerk, District Clerk, Sheriff, and County Treasurer), and most of the courts (JP being the lone exception). Side note on judges: here's a fun exercise for Harris County residents, figure out how many judges you can elect.

The important part of the image above is "Other Districts". Harris County is uncommon among Texas counties to help voters get this far. *Kudos* At my unincorporated Harris County location, I've got a school district, a college district, two water districts, two emergency services districts, and the Harris County DEPARTMENT of Education. Metro is special in that its board members are appointed by elected officials, like the Port of Houston, so I don't get to elect those.

5) Let's look at the voter turnout from this situation. Taking the community college's May elections, here's how many people selected representatives in this taxing authority.

Here's how the voter turnout improved now that it's on the November ballot.

My friends, the May Election cycle is nothing more than voter suppression. It is taxation without representation. Millions in dollars of bonds and tax rate changes are placed on these ballots. One year, I tallied up a trillion dollars in ballot initiatives in the several counties that make up the Houston area. I have raised this issue again and again with Republicans (due to my now-deeply-alienated party affiliation), & the overwhelming response is that this is seen as an opportunity to secure Republicans into more levers of power. And they only want people who actually "care" about the entity to vote.

Early voting in the May 1st Election begins April 19th. Do you know what's on the ballots?

Assuming my readers really want to know, here's what y'all have got to do next after following the steps above. After finding which entities cover your area that you never knew about. Go to the State Comptroller's Special District database to look them up. Note: not all of the special districts are in there. https://spdpid.comptroller.tex...

If there's a website associated with the entity, see if they announce the election. If you don't see anything on the website or there is no website, then you need to call the attorney representing the entity. Simply ask, "Is there anything on the ballot for [entity]?" If the answer is yes, then you need to start asking the attorney for details.

Harris County Clerk's office now provides special district information on their voter information website (https://harrisvotes.com ); however, as demonstrated by WCID 99's bond & tax increase election, this information depends on how cooperative the special district is. WCID 99 held a "Special Election", which I will also argue is another form of voter suppression. Take a look at the reports from November 2019 when the election was held & see if you can find WCID 99 (https://harrisvotes.com/HISTOR...). Here's where you can learn more about it: https://www.hcwcid99.com/bond-...

Now that you've reached the end of this article post, take a moment to register exactly how you feel. That's what voter suppression feels like.

Reference 1: https://refpac.org/news-resear...

Elizabeth Jensen, PhD, PE, CSP
Referee PAC, Treasurer
https://refpac.org