AUSTIN, Texas (LifeSiteNews) – Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called this week for an investigation into reports of problems with the voting process in Harris County for last week’s midterm elections.
“I’m calling on the Secretary of State, the Attorney General’s Office, and the Texas Rangers to initiate investigations into allegations of improprieties in the way that the 2022 elections were conducted in Harris County,” Abbott said. “The allegations of election improprieties in our state’s largest county may result from anything ranging from malfeasance to blatant criminal conduct. Voters in Harris County deserve to know what happened. Integrity in the election process is essential. To achieve that standard, a thorough investigation is warranted.”
Fox 26 Houston reported that Harris County, which includes the populous Democrat-controlled city of Houston, was plagued last week by reports of non-functioning voting and ballot scanning machines, polling locations without ballot paper, counts of more ballots than voters, and more.
This is the @HarrisVotes preliminary election reconciliation form signed by Primary Judge at Central Count. ITS A MESS! 2 different Provisional Ballot #s, different mail ballot #s, and more Ballots than voters! (-#) What is going on? Order w/ no Rs or @TXAG? STOP! @HarrisCountyRP pic.twitter.com/2R5EB6QFub
— Team Bettencourt (@TeamBettencourt) November 10, 2022
“I’m tired of this crap going on in our county,” Harris County Republican Party chair Cindy Siegel said. “Voter suppression is when you can’t go into a poll or it’s not open, when you don’t have equipment that works, and when you don’t have the paper to record your ballot.”
On Wednesday, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said her office is investigating and has “called for the assistance of the Texas Rangers,” and their findings “will be turned over to a Harris County grand jury,” Click2Houston reported. Meanwhile, the Harris GOP is suing Harris County and Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum over allegations that thousands of voters were turned away from the polls on election day.
While Abbott and other Republicans fared well last week in Texas, one of the country’s most conservative states, nationally the midterms were disappointing for the GOP and conservatives, as bipartisan expectations of a “red wave” were dashed by Republicans instead barely retaking the U.S. House of Representatives and failing to wrest the Senate from Democrat control.
Many possible factors have been identified as potentially contributing to Republicans’ underperformance, with competing factions of the conservative movement currently holding fierce online debates as to which are most to blame. A prominent theory among those factors is potential vote fraud, which also dominated much of the conversation after the 2020 presidential election.
Other alleged factors include establishment Republicans’ withdrawing of financial support for certain candidates; former President Donald Trump redirecting midterm donations to his own organization instead of midterm candidates and his elevation of questionable candidates in Republican primaries; Democrats themselves funding weaker GOP candidates in GOP primaries; Democrats’ effective harvesting of early votes and mail ballots; establishment Republicans failing to offer a compelling contrast to Democrats over the last two years; and the long-term results of left-wing bias in media and education.