HARRIS COUNTY (WBAP/KLIF News) – Amid the fallout over a series of issues in last week’s primary elections, there’s been a high-profile resignation in Texas’ most populous county.
Harris County Election Administrator Isabel Longoria submitted her resignation Tuesday night after public comment during the Commissioner’s meeting about the voting problems that occurred.
Election officials said about 10,000 mail in ballots were tabulated but not counted on the day of the election and there was a lack of poll workers.
The situation led to a delay in determining some of the winners in the nation’s first primary of the 2022 midterms.
The March 1 primary was the first statewide election that took place in Texas under new, tighter voting laws.
Voting rights advocates said the situation is an example of the issues the new laws may present.
“The real tragedy is the confusion created by the new election law which caused a staggering number of mail ballot rejections. While the challenges faced by the Harris County election administration were resolved, voters all across Texas were disenfranchised due to the new election law when their applications to vote by mail and vote by mail ballots were rejected,” said Grace Chimene, League of Women Voters President.
The new laws required mail-in ballots applicants to also provide their a drivers license number or the last four digits of a social security number.
Chimene said despite the issues and Longoria’s subsequent resignation, there is a silver lining.
“Yes, there were challenges in tabulating the votes in Harris County. The good news for voters is the normal post-election audit processes worked to track down the missing ballots and have those votes counted. We applaud the professionalism that the Harris County Election Administrator, Isabel Longoria, and her staff demonstrated during this very complicated and confusing election,” she said.
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