Public information requests flood Harris County election offices as midterm elections near

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Election Day is a short six weeks away. But Harris County election offices are not only preparing for you to cast your ballot, they are also working to answer hundreds of public information requests.

This is not a small increase in Harris County's case, and it coincides with a legal opinion from the state's attorney general, Ken Paxton.

The opinion came out more than a month ago. In it, the attorney general wrote that the public has a right to public records from elections offices, as long as how an individual voted is not released.

Since then, a flood of public information requests have inundated Harris County's election office.

Here are the numbers.

Before November 2020, Harris County told ABC13, it received roughly 300 public information requests per year. In 2021, that number was up nearly 150% to 747. In 2022, it's more than 900 so far.

Harris County also reported an increase in voter registration challenges too.

In 2021, there were two. During a two-week period in August, there were 115.

The requests for cast vote records and anonymous voter ballots have also increased.

Up until Paxton's opinion, there was just one request. In the three weeks after it, there were more than 80.

Cindy Siegel is the chair of the Harris County Republican party and sits on the county's election commission. She understands voters want information from their public officials.

"I'm not surprised. I think, as citizens, we all should be able to know that our government is transparent," Siegel told ABC13. "They want to ensure that the process is working, that they have registered to vote, that the rolls are clean and that they know their ballot is going to be counted."

Siegel's Democratic counterpart is Odus Evbagharu. He said he fears the requests are not just about transparency but are the result of much larger issues.

"We never want to run from transparency and accountability," Evbagharu said. "It's important to have trust in our election system and I want to reiterate we are for transparency, we are for accountability, we are for responsibility. We're not for suppressing the vote and feeding into QAnon conspiracy theories."

The increase in requests is not only happening here. It's a phenomenon that's occurring across the country. In August, ABC News found public information request increases not only in Texas, but also in Florida, Maine, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Colorado. Evbagharu thinks he knows why.

"There are a lot of people feeding into the big lie," he said, referring to unfounded allegations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. "There are a lot of people feeding into QAnon conspiracies, dead people voting, and that there's massive spread voter fraud. You are more likely to be struck by lightning than to find voter fraud."

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