Texas officials accused of manipulation
Staff and agencies
18 February, 2007
By JOE STINEBAKER, Associated Press Writer Fri Feb 16, 1:44 PM ET
HOUSTON - In two Houston-area elections last year, school officials are accused of blatantly trying to manipulate polling locations to get the outcome they wanted.
That would have made it more convenient for students and employees — natural supporters of the bond issue — and less convenient for off-campus opponents. The U.S. Justice Department thwarted the plan.
"I‘m sort of astonished that election law in Texas allows somebody to buy their way onto a different ballot," said Henry Brady, a political scientist at the University of California at Berkeley.
The League of United Latin American Citizens and other critics accused district officials of trying to dilute Hispanic voting strength and limit turnout to those who work and study at the college.
In Pearland, where the campaign to replace former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay guaranteed a higher-than-usual turnout in the general election, school district officials scheduled a $115.6 million bond election for the same day.
Voter turnout in Pearland was 40 percent in the general election, but only 9 percent in the school district election. The bond proposal passed with 70 percent of the vote.
"It wasn‘t a perfect decision," Cain said. "We just felt like we were following through with a long tradition of bringing the voting booth to the voting public."
"Unless somebody notices it and makes a big stink through the ordinary political process, you‘re not going to hear a lot about that. And it‘s very easy for these sorts of decisions to slip through without detection," said Dan Tokaji, a professor specializing in elections law at Ohio State University.
Republican state Rep. Dan Gattis wrote the exemption at the request of a Houston-area legislator — whose name he said he couldn‘t remember — who threatened to otherwise kill the bill.
"I believe the constituents of Harris County and those seven surrounding counties are being ill-served by not being under the same rules and regulations as the rest of the state," Gattis said. "It is pure manipulation that is going on with some of these elections."
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