TEXAS: Harris County (Houston) voter registrar scandal-Docs Reveal-Registrar a GOP Consultant

[kpete]

TEXAS: Harris County (Houston) voter registrar scandal
Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 08:24:19 AM PDT

KHOU (Houston) Report: Harris County Voter Registrar a GOP Consultant

Lone Star Project Documents Reveal Johnson Paid by Republican Candidates

With documents obtained from the Lone Star Project, KHOU (Houston) aired a story last night revealing that Ed Johnson , the assistant director of voter registration for Harris County, is a paid Republican campaign consultant. His company, Campaign Data Systems (CDS), has numerous Harris County Republican candidate as clients, including the Conservative Republicans of Harris County PAC, Senator Dan Patrick, and Congressman Michael McCaul. Republican State Representative Dwayne Bohac (HD 138) is also a principal owner of CDS. Johnson and Bohac are both listed on the Articles of Organization and on the CDS website as a person to contact. It is unacceptable that a county employee with unimpeded access to Voter Registration records, who can grant or deny the ability to vote to an individual, also works as a partisan political consultant.


More and Video here.
http://www.lonestarproject.net/Permalink/2009-06-09.html

[OregonBlue]

1. Wow. Very interesting. Probably standard practice in TX.

[clear eye]

2. Yes it's unacceptable, but

is it illegal in Texas? If you've read Molly Ivins over the years, you know that in Texas, corruption is a way of life that is rarely even questioned. My feeling is that there needs to be a federal law making the highest election law enforcement position in all states a senior civil service job, called something prosaic like "Chief Commissioner of Elections" kept separate from the attorney-general position, and that there be severe restrictions on the political activities of all state and county election office employees. In NYS, where I live, restrictions on the counties would be a problem for the major political parties because those jobs are how parties pay their main operatives. In fact non-partisan county election officials are rare as hen's teeth anywhere in this country.

It's the sort of outrageous, but totally unquestioned, situation that is ripe for a major expose, like the lack of accountability for automobile safety by manufacturers that Nader highlighted in Unsafe at Any Speed, or the environmental devastation DDT was wreaking revealed by Rachel Carson in Silent Spring.

Of course if non-partisanship were made a law, local U.S. DA's would have to be willing to enforce violations.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

3. Its not who you vote for, but who counts the votes. n/t

[kpete]

4. you got that right!

peace, kp

[AtLiberty]

5. Bets...

Ed Johnson is probably very confused at the moment, wondering what all the fuss is about...

[2 Much Tribulation]

6. This forwarded to the attention of the President and Rahm Emanuel, as well as TX politicos.. nt