Tarrant County Commissioners added an item to the agenda for their April 26,2022 regular meeting. This agenda item will address submitted email questions from voters regarding the public’s concerns over the county’s elections.
In this linked article, Tarrant County Elections Administrator, Heider Garcia, stated that this agenda item will allow for the commissioners to address what’s been brought forward.
Okay, I will start with that statement. What is it that has “been brought forward?” Well, according to topics of conversation circulating on various social media group pages since the March 2022 Texas Primary, “what’s been brought forward” are various claims about delays in the vote count tabulation on election night and speculation about the accuracy or legitimacy of the final certified votes.
Similar to what occurred in Harris County, Tarrant County voters of both political parties were turned away at several locations due to staffing shortages. Remember, in Texas during a primary election, it is the responsibility of both political parties’ county executive committees to recruit election workers and volunteers to staff polling locations. As if that weren’t problematic enough, Tarrant County’s final vote count results were delayed due to what Garcia vaguely described as “tracking down a computer problem.” A live stream video of election officials from election night clearly showed that they were working diligently with election equipment, attempting rebooting, but to no avail. Ultimately, Garcia reported that the issue had been resolved and there were exact matches on all ballot counts, despite the computer error that initially caused the delays.
Here’s an interesting bit of information: On the morning of the election, Garcia had addressed county officials predicting possible delays with vote counts when polling locations closed that evening. Was he already aware of flaws with the computers or voting equipment? Why was he expressing concern about delays while voting was still underway? Oh, I almost forgot to mention that prior to becoming the Elections Administrator for Tarrant County, Mr. Garcia was employed by none other than, Dominion Voting Systems. You’d have to be living under a rock if you’ve never heard of them before.
Okay, so here are a few more questions; What exactly was the computer error and what caused it? How were election officials able to determine or identify that there even was an error?
In an interview with the Star-Telegram, Garcia claims that the upcoming commissioners meeting will be an opportunity to educate voters and “help build trust so the public has first-hand information on how things work out there.” Garcia also views the agenda item as an opportunity for his office to address misconceptions, rumors and theories.
That’s all well and good, one might suppose. But here’s a couple more final questions: Voters must submit their questions via email. Will every question be addressed, if not how many questions will the commissioners review and respond to? Who is vetting the questions to determine which questions take priority? Will the voter who submitted the question be allowed to ask the question before the commissioners or will a moderator read the questions out loud? These are legitimate inquiries when it comes down to one of the concerns by voters, which is “transparency.” It falls in line right up there with ACCOUNTABILITY and INTEGRITY.
Tarrant County voters may submit questions to the commissioners for the April 26, 10:00 a.m. meeting via email at:
[email protected]
So, what else can Tarrant County voters do to address their election integrity concerns? Want to get involved?
Visit: texasforamericafirst.org for more information.
Maria Miller,
Texas For America First State Director