Following what media has reported as “bungled primary elections,” Harris County Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria submitted her resignation this afternoon, effective July 1st.  

Any replacement would have to be approved by a five-member panel consisting of the County Judge, County Clerk, Tax Assessor-Collector, and the Democratic and Republican Party County Chairpersons. If any change to the system of having a professional election administrator run the elections were desired, that would have to be done by the Commissioner’s Court. 

Harris County is the biggest county in Texas, and third biggest in the country. Texas has runoff elections coming up in May.  

Following is a statement from Common Cause Texas Executive Director Anthony Gutierrez:  

“Elections should be run by nonpartisan professionals. Regardless of what happened in this election, the single most important thing at this point is for the Election Commission to move quickly to identify potential replacements and get someone qualified in place as soon as humanly possible. 

We strongly urge all counties – including Harris – against going back to the days of having elections run by partisan officials. 

Texas is just over 80 days out from another statewide election, with multiple runoffs happening on May 24th. And preparations for November are already underway. Making huge changes to the elections process amid a current cycle would be detrimental to the maintenance of fair elections. 

At a time when Governor Abbott has appointed a still-unconfirmed Secretary of State who worked to overturn the results of the 2020 election, it is more important than ever that the officials running elections in Texas’ 254 counties are not only nonpartisan but that county commissions hire experts in election administration.” 

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