Greg made an observation about the District H result that I’d like to explore a bit.
Yolanda’s early numbers were a little surprising as it would have meant a runoff between her and Ed if those numbers held. But even more surprising than that was Welsh leading the E-day returns with 36% to Ed’s 29%.
I was at Maverick Welsh’s return-watching party on Saturday night, and I can tell you that this wasn’t unexpected at all by his crew. They knew that the early voting locations were in parts of the district that were less favorable to Welsh, and they planned to make up the difference on Election Day itself. Which is exactly what happened, as turnout in the Heights was heavier than in other areas. I was a little surprised at how much ground he made up, but the final result wasn’t that surprising.
While I don’t think there was much that could be done about it for an election of this kind, I do think in general that there is a real need for more early voting places. In particular, I think there’s a need for more EV locations inside employment centers, because I think having more of them near where people work would make voting a lot easier. Moody Park is closer to where I live than any other EV location, but I never used it before this election because it’s not convenient to my daily commute; I work southwest of where I live, and Moody Park is northeast from my house. I generally vote at the Multipurpose Center on West Gray because it’s between where I live and where I work, or at the Fiesta on Kirby because it’s walking distance from where I work.
Unfortunately, as the trend towards more early voting continues, those locations become less convenient because the lines are so long. Here’s the early voting by location for this past November. The Multipurpose Center had by far the most votes cast of any EV location. When you realize that it serves basically the entire Montrose/Upper Kirby/Greenway area, and likely a good chunk of the Galleria area, that’s no surprise. Where else are all those people going to go?
The two State Rep districts that have only one EV location and which had the largest number of early votes cast were HDs 134 and 136. The former encompasses the Greenway Plaza area, and the latter includes the Galleria area. Yet neither of those highly dense business districts has an early voting location of their own. Looking at the EV map from November, all of that area is served by the West Gray MSC, which I believe is why it is so ridiculously crowded all the time. I say this has to change.
What makes sense to me would be a new location in the Greenway area, and a new location in the Galleria area, one in HD134 and one in HD136. I don’t know what the requirements and restrictions are on EV locations, but if I could just wave a magic wand I might pick something like the Houston Intown Chamber of Commerce building at 3015 Richmond, and something in the vicinity of San Felipe and Post Oak. Again, I don’t know what the details are, but geographically speaking that’s what I have in mind. Bonus points for locations that will be served by the eventual light rail expansion, as these would be.
None of this would have changed the calculus of the District H special election early voting, of course. You’d have needed an EV location in the Heights for that, and that really doesn’t make sense given that HD148 already has two EV sites, which happened to be the two District H sites as well. But a lot of people, all throughout early voting, expressed surprise to me that the West Gray MSC wasn’t open for this. They didn’t think about it not being in H, they thought about it as being the one place they’ve ever gone to vote early. It’s time for there to be more places like that.
UPDATE: Marc Campos suggests that the reason Heights turnout was so much bigger on Election Day was because voters there didn’t want to cross I-45, which he calls “the Mexican-Dixon line”. I’m sure that has something to do with it, but again, I think people go where it’s convenient to their daily routine, which neither Ripley House nor Moody Park are for me, or likely for anyone who lives west of I-45 and works south of where they live. During the afternoon, traffic on I-45 North becomes appreciably worse north of downtown. Who wants to deal with that if they don’t have to?
UPDATE: Greg adds on.
UPDATE: To clarify something here, I do not claim that the early voting locations had any effect on the total turnout in this election. Rather, I believe, as does Marc Campos, that the fact that Maverick Welsh did better on Election Day had to do with where the early voting locations were. I also believe, as I wrote in this post, that there should be more early voting locations, including some in high-density employment centers, since I believe that people vote early where it is convenient for them.
Ripley House didn’t appear convenient for anyone based on the number of people who voted there. The County Administration Building will always be open because of its keystone nature to the system (it’s where the absentee ballots are delivered, where the election supervisors office out of regularly, etc.). Moody Park is fairly easy for me since it’s close to where I live and I spend a significant amount of time on both sides of I-45.
I don’t think there is any hope of a voting location opening in the Heights anytime soon, though the West End Multi-Purpose center would serve nicely should they re-align the locations entirely based on your recommendations to open up more locations in work centers. It is time that the population who turns out in droves to the West Gray Adaptive Center be given more accommodations. Surely someone at the County Clerk’s office has the numbers on where it would make sense to redistribute this load.
But, none of this has much to do with the District H special election. What needs to be looked at immediately is where the people who live in Independence Heights and the Far Northside went to vote and in what numbers. I would be willing to bet that fewer than 100 African-Americans voted early and in-person. I hope that community leaders and organizations dedicated to voter participation have noticed this trend and will ask for change.
The Maverick Welsh Campaign will not spend too much time on this other than to say we support more locations being opened across District H. We are a political campaign. This is a civil rights issue. We don’t want to make equal access to voting locations about getting Maverick elected to City Council. Any call for change needs to come from community leaders, civil rights organizations and voter advocacy groups. If they are doing they’re job, then they will certainly look at the same numbers I have and step up.
John Canales Gorczynski
Campaign Manager
Maverick Welsh for City Council – District H