State and Department of Justice officials in Harris County to observe election processes

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- If you cast your vote on Election Day in Harris County, officials from the state and the Department of Justice may have been looking on.

Monitoring of the election process is nothing new, but it has been heightened in the past couple of years as election integrity has been called into question.

"This is all occurring because there's a concern about vote fraud, especially driven by Republicans' fears that this is something that has been pernicious in the 2020 election," Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, explained.

Days before the start of early voting for the 2022 midterm election, the Secretary of State's office sent a letter to the Harris County Elections Administrator saying they would be sending inspectors to make sure the election process is going as it should.

In addition, they said the office of the attorney general would be sending a task force to Harris County on Election Day, though the details about it are vague.

Democrats saw the move to send the inspectors and task force as an intimidation tactic and requested that the Department of Justice intervene.

"This is time after time the Secretary of State's Office and state officials have shown that they cannot be trusted with Harris County elections, and so in order to avoid any interference or disruption, we've asked the DOJ to come in to be that objective and neutral third party," Christian Menefee, the Harris County Attorney, said.

ABC13 reached out to the Secretary of State's office for their perspective on Menefee and others' claims. They sent the following response:

"Clifford Tatum himself has praised the work of our inspectors and trainers in helping Harris County, so it doesn't make sense that the County Attorney is still pushing the false narrative that our office is there to interfere with or disrupt the election process in Harris County. The facts, and the public statements from the Elections Administrator himself, demonstrate the exact opposite."

So on Election Day in Harris County, both state and federal officials are watching over the election process...

"This is kind of a round robin of watching the watchers watch the process," Rottinghaus explained.

The Harris County Elections Administrator says the monitoring is fine by him.

"We look forward to their responses from them, so we can improve the process. So, we are glad they are here. We understand that they are not interfering with the process. They are simply taking notes and we are okay with that," Clifford Tatum, the Harris County Elections Administrator, said.

Rottinghaus says election watching should not worry people.

"Even though it might seem odd that there's all this monitoring going on, Harris County is a big county. This is a place where there's been concerns about the process before so this is really just kind of a fail-safe to make sure that everything is being done openly, honestly, and fairly," Rottinghaus said.

According to the Secretary of State's Office, they have eight election inspectors assigned to Harris County on Election Day, and their understanding is that the Department of Justice has 10 people observing.

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