Tag Archives: Harris County

Interview with Isabel Longoria

Following on to my interview with Chris Hollins, today I have for you a conversation with our brand new and first-ever Election Administrator in Harris County, Isabel Longoria. Longoria is a former legislative staffer who ran for City Council in … Continue reading

Posted in Election 2020 | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Paxton has a tantrum about the Harris County Election Administrator

Someone is going to have to help me understand this, because I’m clearly missing something. Harris County failed to follow the Texas Election Code when it created an independent election administration office, rendering the office and the appointment of Isabel … Continue reading

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Interview with Chris Hollins

To put a bow on this long, strange trip that was the 2020 election season, I have a couple of interviews to bring you with key players from the election. The first is with Chris Hollins, the now-former Harris County … Continue reading

Posted in Election 2020 | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

I remain pessimistic about the chances of good voting bills passing

This Trib story suggests that with Republicans doing well in the high turnout 2020 election, and with the emergency measures that were implemented to expand voting access, the odds of getting a bill passed to make some forms of voting … Continue reading

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What the Early Voting Ballot Board does

They were especially important this year. In the wake of the Nov. 3 general election, the air is filled with an overwhelming amount of disinformation about vote counting, specifically as it relates to mail ballots and provisional ballots. In Michigan, … Continue reading

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A different kind of COVID tracking

Hope this works. Harris County Public Health will survey residents for COVID-19 antibodies in an effort to determine how many people already have been infected with the novel coronavirus, the department said. Beginning Sunday, health workers will visit randomly selected … Continue reading

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Early voting starts today for District B runoff

At long last, the voters in District B will get to elect a new City Council member. . Over the weekend we mailed out 12,000 mail ballots for the December Runoff Election. In person Early Voting starts Wednesday! #HarrisVotes #HouNews … Continue reading

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Please stay socially distant this Thanksgiving

It’s what we have to do. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo on Tuesday urged residents to limit Thanksgiving gatherings to immediate family to limit the spread of COVID-19. The county will send an emergency cell phone alert to all residents … Continue reading

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Beware color-coded county maps

I spotted this on Twitter the other day and it got me thinking: . Biden now leads by 3.86 points nationwide, per @Redistrict popular vote tracker, matching Obama’s 3.86 pt win in 2012. He’ll exceed it soon. They won by … Continue reading

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Greg Abbott has no interest in fighting COVID

It is what it is at this point. On June 26, Texas was reporting 5,102 people had been hospitalized due to the coronavirus, breaking a new record for the state. The positivity rate — the portion of tests that come … Continue reading

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Counties of interest, part one: Around Harris

There’s been so much focus in the past couple of years about the suburbs and how their traditional voting patterns have changed. I wanted to use the election results we have to take a closer look at what that means. … Continue reading

Posted in Election 2020 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

The poll workers’ stories

Some good news. With a record 2,431,457 registered voters on the rolls in Harris County, there were several reasons poll workers expected a huge turnout and they got it, but not on Election Day. Two judges working two of the … Continue reading

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A closer look at county races, Part 1

In this series of entries, I’m going to take a trip through the local election results pages on some counties of interest, to get a closer look at how they went this year and how that compares to 2016. We … Continue reading

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The “blue spine” and the rural counties

Point: For the third consecutive election cycle, Democrats saw their advantage over Republicans grow in the 21 counties along Interstate 35, allowing them to further chip into the Republican dominance that has lasted for nearly three decades. The result was … Continue reading

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Harris County posts updated election results

From Twitter: . That won’t affect most races, and it probably does not affect any Harris-County specific races. But if provisional ballots are like that statewide, it could affect larger, close elections. I’m particularly watching Chief Justice for the 14th … Continue reading

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Harris County reaches bike trail deal with CenterPoint

Nice. Biking between bayous in Harris County is closer to reality, now that local leaders and the monopoly that manages local power lines have inked a deal. Harris County officials Tuesday approved an agreement between the county and CenterPoint Energy … Continue reading

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The state of the county 2020

Mostly, COVID is bad and we’re not getting much help, and we’re also not allowed to do the things we know we need to do. Other than that… The worsening COVID-19 pandemic in Texas, which this week became the first … Continue reading

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Felony bail reform lawsuit moves forward

Pending the next appeal, anyway. A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the case challenging Harris County’s felony bail system should proceed to trial. Nineteen felony judges represented by state Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately gave notice they planned to appeal … Continue reading

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

So how did my simple projection work out?

Remember this? I divided the counties up by how much their voter rolls had grown or shrunk since 2012, then used the 2016 turnout levels and 2018 results to project final numbers for the Presidential election in 2020. Now that … Continue reading

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By the way, we’re still counting votes here in Texas

In case you were wondering. Harris County is still counting ballots, too, just like counties all across Texas. We’re not focused on that right now, because Texas went to President Donald Trump on election night. But more than 100 people … Continue reading

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Looking ahead to 2022

Continuing with the brain dumps, which are my post-election tradition. This is a collection of thoughts about the next big election, in 2022. As I said earlier, I take no position on the question of what effect the disparity in … Continue reading

Posted in Election 2020, Election 2022 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

It’s a range, not a number

I don’t have full canvass data yet, but as I have said, I have Presidential data courtesy of Greg Wythe. Here are a couple of districts of interest: Dist Biden Trump Biden% Trump% ========================================= CD02 170,707 178,840 48.1% 50.0% CD07 … Continue reading

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A few words about election security

Lisa Gray talks to my friend Dan Wallach about everybody’s favorite subject. If I’m aiming to steal an election, what’s the best way to go about it? Are mail-in ballots the easiest? If your goal is to steal an election, … Continue reading

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A comparison to 2012

A lot of the takes on this election – and I’m guilty of this, too – involve comparisons to 2016 and 2018. That’s fair – those are the most recent elections, the only other elections that involve Trump, the patterns … Continue reading

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Menefee and Fagan

I’m delighted about the election of Christian Menefee as Harris County Attorney, and look forward to his inauguration. Christian Menefee, the youngest and first African-American elected Harris County attorney Tuesday evening, took little time to celebrate his historic victory. By … Continue reading

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A few observations from the final unofficial countywide data

This is still unofficial, and there will still be some overseas/military ballots to be counted as well as some provisional ballots to be cured, but the count of the votes cast by Election Day is over, and we have the … Continue reading

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Initial thoughts about the election

And now for some reactions and analysis… – The polls were garbage. Oy vey. Not just here, though they were definitely off here, underestimating Trump and the Republicans after doing the same to Beto and the Dems in 2018. This … Continue reading

Posted in Election 2020 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Followup omnibus Election Day post

Wanted to clear up some loose ends from the late night/early morning post and add a couple of things I’d missed the first time around. I’ll have a longer “thoughts and reactions” post probably tomorrow. – The district results from … Continue reading

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Omnibus Election Day post

I was up really late last night, and there’s still a lot of votes to be counted. The SOS website was mostly trash, but a lot of county election sites took their sweet, sweet time even reporting any Election Day … Continue reading

Posted in Election 2020, The making of the President | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

The role Harris County can play in turning Texas blue

Big county + big turnout = big margin. Texas is not the sort of place national candidates visit just before Election Day or where political ads play on a loop during popular TV shows. And, yet, here we are: Texas … Continue reading

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Federal judge denies Hotze petition

Hopefully, this will be the end of this particular nonsense. A federal judge Monday rejected a request by a conservative activist and three Republican candidates to toss out nearly 127,000 votes cast at drive-thru polling sites in Texas’ most populous, … Continue reading

Posted in Election 2020, Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Today is Election Day

It almost feels unreal, doesn’t it? Like some people have been saying while on line at voting locations, we’ve been waiting four whole years for this. Now it’s here, Texas is considered a swing state, the Lege is in play, … Continue reading

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A few thoughts about Election 2020 before Tuesday

Just a brain dump, to get this all out there before we find out what happened. Let’s start with this: After the conclusion of three weeks of early voting, 9.7 million Texans have cast ballots, crushing previous early voting totals … Continue reading

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SCOTX rejects Hotze petition to throw out drive through votes

One piece of good news. A legal cloud hanging over nearly 127,000 votes already cast in Harris County was at least temporarily lifted Sunday when the Texas Supreme Court rejected a request by several conservative Republican activists and candidates to … Continue reading

Posted in Election 2020, Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments