Politics Vs. Security: Two Takes On Harris County’s Nearly 12-Hour Delay In Election Results

“It’s curious to me why the secretary of state started enforcing this law once I took office and not before.”

By Jen RiceNovember 14, 2019 4:12 pm, , ,

From Houston Public Media:

Election Night last week was a late night in Harris County. It took almost 12 hours to report results when things didn’t go according to plan for the new County Clerk Diane Trautman, a Democrat who was first elected in 2018.

While Trautman blames the delay on politics and a last-minute advisory from the Texas Secretary of State, others maintain her system for counting votes wasn’t secure and needed to be addressed.

Trautman said it took several months for her office to develop their process for tabulating votes. “All the way, our County Attorney was advising us that this was a perfectly legal process and per the election code,” Trautman said.

Trautman’s office made some changes to the way the county transmits results — from a modem system to an intranet network. Paul Simpson, chair of the Harris County Republican Party, said those changes violated the state’s election code.

“What the county clerk was going to do, and may have done in May 2019 without our knowledge, was connect it to what they call an intranet, but it is an external network that can be hacked into,” Simpson said.

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