State threatens to take over Harris County elections after voters found registered at UPS Stores

The Secretary of State’s Office could cut funding for elections in Harris County after a Houston senator discovered more than 100 voters registered at P.O. Boxes.

Save for a few exceptions, residents have been generally prohibited from registering to vote at post offices and other non-residential addresses after a bill Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, authored became law in 2018. Bettencourt filed a formal complaint Thursday against the tax office, which oversees voter registration in Harris County, and called on Tax Assessor-Collector Annette Ramirez to purge the rolls.

“No voter lives in a private P.O. Box, and that address cannot be used as the voter’s primary registration address,” the letter, which was posted to X, read. “I am very disappointed that after the bill passed and went into law, these P.O. Box voter registrations still exist. No doubt others at similar locations exist throughout Harris County.”

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The Harris County Tax Office was not available to comment on Bettencourt’s letter by deadline.

Bettencourt’s claim was verified by the Houston Chronicle. Fifty-nine voters were registered at a UPS location at 1302 Waugh Dive and 65 at another location at 11152 Westheimer Road. The Houston Chronicle also located an additional 30 voters registered at a UPS Store at 5090 Richmond Ave., according to registration data published by the tax office.

While most residents cannot register to vote at P.O. Boxes, Bettencourt’s bill included carveouts for members of the military and their families, law enforcement officers, judges, college students and witnesses aiding police in criminal investigations whose circumstances necessitate confidentiality.

That means the tax office cannot simply purge every voter registered at a P.O. Box, but must instead send each one a letter requesting they verify their eligibility to register at a non-residential address. Bettencourt acknowledged in the letter that many of the registrations likely predated Ramirez, who took office Jan. 1.

Bettencourt told the Chronicle in a Friday interview that he made the complaint purely out of concern for residents’ faith in the election process.

“I want people to have trust that a voter roll has integrity and that their elections are actually straight down the center strike,” Bettencourt said.

But Nancy Sims, a political science lecturer at the University of Houston, said that Texas’ tightening grip on voter registration could burden already low turnout in local elections.

“America is not a huge voting entity in the first place. In a presidential election, you might see 50-60% voter turnout, and that’s the highest turnout you’ll see across the board,” Sims said. “The more impediments we put in the path of people voting, the more challenging it becomes, and people will eventually just lose interest.”

‘All tools available’

It’s a crusade Bettencourt has championed since as early as October 2018. The Houston-area Republican, whose district extends into Montgomery County, has introduced a slew of bills related to election integrity, including one that could be used to withhold funds from the county and another that could be used to place its elections under the oversight of Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson.

Texas Senate Bill 510 went into effect Sept. 1, and empowered the secretary of state to withhold elections funding if a registrar “fails to timely perform a duty.” The Alan Vera Election Accountability Act of 2023, named after a conservative activist who died at the Texas Capitol the same year, gave Nelson the authority to place Harris County under “administrative oversight” should an investigation find “a recurring pattern of problems” in the election process.

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“Administrative oversight” would empower Nelson to act as the approving authority for all elections policies and procedures and send staff to inspect polls and conduct in-person observations of tax office personnel assigned to elections operations.

In a response to Bettencourt’s complaint, Nelson said in a Tuesday statement she would do everything in her power to ensure elections operate in accordance with state law.

“County election officials are obligated to maintain accurate voting registrations and remove ineligible voters,” Nelson said. “I will use all tools available to me to provide accountability when it comes to elections.”

Nelson previously sent inspectors to monitor election operations in November following an audit that found multiple violations in the elections processes in both 2021 and 2022. While Nelson conceded officials have since addressed many of the issues outline in the audit, she said past violations justified additional scrutiny.

The county has 30 days to respond to the complaint, Nelson said.

While S.B. 510 applies to all Texas counties, the Alan Vera Election Accountability Act of 2023 is limited to counties with a population of more than 4 million – a number exceeded only by Harris County.

Among the issues that could see state officials seize control of the county’s elections are consistently malfunctioning voting machines, tabulation errors and failure on behalf of the registrar to vet and maintain the county’s voter rolls.

Shadow of elections past

Bettencourt said while many of the reforms included in the Alan Vera Act came in response to issues experienced by voters during the 2022 election.

“There are several categories – equipment failure, lack of supplies – stuff that comes out of the 2022 election,” Bettencourt said. “I put voter roll issues as the last one, because it’s so important to have voter roll maintenance so people feel their elections are being handled with integrity.”

Republicans filed 21 lawsuits in the wake of the 2022 elections, which were marred by delayed openings at polling locations, long lines and ballot paper shortages that conservatives alleged disproportionately impacted Republican-leaning areas.

Although 20 of the races were upheld by David Peeples, a visiting judge from San Antonio, the results of the 180th District Court judge election were overturned in 2024.

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Democrat DaSean Jones beat Republican Judge Tami Pierce by 449 votes, but Peeples found that more than 1,400 illegal votes were cast in the judicial race – enough to cast reasonable doubt over the outcome of the election. Although Peeples ordered a do-over election, Jones resigned in September. Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Pierce to the seat less than a month later.

Nearly 1,000 of the illegal votes were cast by people who lived outside of Harris County, Peeples found. Bettencourt said the county’s spotty history administering elections, combined with the extremely slim margins sometimes seen in local races, demand diligent monitoring of voter rolls.

“In my lifetime a Republican beat a Democrat by seven votes,” Bettencourt said. “This can get very close.”

Although Sims said laws like those authored by Bettencourt might further hamper voter turnout – both through the arduous registration process and the sheer number of state and local elections held each year in counties across the state – the time for that debate has long passed.

“The Texas Legislature said ‘We don’t think you should be able to register at a P.O. Box.’ That’s the law,” Sims said. “Requiring a county to comply with the state’s laws is an appropriate action.”

This article originally published at State threatens to take over Harris County elections after voters found registered at UPS Stores.