You never know what will happen at the Downtown Houston Pachyderm Club’s weekly meetings. Some meetings feel like battles. Some are informative. Some are out of control. And some, like yesterday’s meeting, toss the featured speaker aside and get taken over by self-proclaimed “experts”.
Former state rep and mayoral candidate Fernando Herrera was the featured speaker. His subject was supposed to be examples of voter fraud in the recent election. I don’t know if he had any examples of that or not because he didn’t get a full opportunity to speak. He started with a sort of insider view of what he’s been through in two campaigns and as an alternate judge and interpreter at the polls.
It was interesting even if most of his examples were anecdotal. He mentioned the buses that pulled up behind a polling place in 2010 and the riders were allowed to go in the back way and vote. He talked a lot about President Obama’s program to stop deporting children of illegal immigrants, and the problems that it will create. He told of some voters asking for “proof” that they voted because they had been told that they cannot get their food stamps without it. He said that when he saw how easy it was to get registered to vote, he called the County Clerk’s office and asked if anyone verified the information on the applications. When he was told that the state did that, he called the Secretary of State’s office and they told him that they didn’t check, that it was an honor system, and that if someone was falsifying information, they would eventually get caught. Karma,you know?
He was interrupted several times with questions – that is normal, it happens to most speakers at these small events, including me. No big deal. But finally he became frustrated and decided to just open the floor to questions and that is when the “expert” took over. The “expert” being Ed Johnson, who works for County Clerk Stan Stanart. Ed is generally considered an “expert” in Republican circles when it comes to elections. Why I’m not sure but perhaps because he usually stands up and says something like, “I’ve been doing this forever, let me clear up some things”.
He told Fernando that he was wrong about the state not verifying the information because they have a direct link to the drivers license database and to the Social Security database. He claims, despite what Fernando was told, that if the information on the application doesn’t match, the registration is rejected. Of course, if the application is blank on those two items, the application is approved.
Ed also talked about how ridiculous it is to have the County Clerk responsible for running the election but not allowing him to pick the people running it. He claimed that the Harris County Democratic Party turned in a complete list of election judges and alternates with extras, and these extras had to be used because the Harris County Republican Party was short by a hundred.
When a couple of people whined about the Democrats registering more voters than Republicans, Ed chimed in with his “knowledge” that there were 3,000 deputy voter registrars in Harris County and that he could count on one hand the number of Republicans. He also thinks that it is a crime that no one is ever prosecuted in Harris County for filing a false voter registration application.
You know what? I’m tired of “experts” in the Harris County Republican Party that do nothing but whine about what the other side is doing. One of the audience members tried to make the point that we need to change the vacancy committee’s approach of “purifying” the party but she was shut down and ignored. She’s right – the problems we have are internal. If it bothers you that Harris County Democrats registered 86,453 new voters between September 1st and the deadline to register, stop whining, get off your butt and go register some people!
There are times when I leave a meeting and my outlook about the future of the Harris County Republican Party is brighter. Then there are times, like yesterday, when I walk out wondering why I’m hanging out with a bunch of whiners. I called Fernando and told him that I felt bad about Ed taking over the meeting. Typical of Fernando, he was gracious and said that he wasn’t upset about it, it was just one of those things and it wasn’t going to prevent him from pushing ahead. We need more Fernando Herrera’s and fewer whiners.
Sorry I missed the meeting (there is a reason this club is sub-titled the Working Lawyer Pachyderm Club), but Ed Johnson is an expert on matters relating to voter registration and administration of elections. He has testified numerous times in front of the legislature on such subjects. Marty Morrison and Tom Moon would also qualify as experts, in my opinion. Ed is also the immediate past president of the Downtown Houston Pachyderm Club, and has been suggested to me numerous times as a speaker regarding elections.
I would also classify Judge Mark Davidson as an expert on judicial election results, and court and courthouse history. He has been a very informative speaker in the past at our club.
Tom Zakes
🙂
By the way, for all the people whining about the screening process for potential precinct chairs, they can completely bybass this and just file for election to the post. Believe me, there are some people who are precinct chairs that would best be classified as nutcakes that made it in that way, and unless someone in their precinct runs against them, they are not going to be removed.
Wow, I have no additional comments to make. Good job David!
Uh oh. 😉
Tom, you are completely wrong about people that complain about the vacancy committee. We aren’t whining. This is a real problem and I know that you can recognize it if you choose to. Sure, people can file to run for any precinct – problem is, you have to actually live in a precinct with a vacancy, or, in my case in 2010, with someone you wanted to replace. We replaced the guy and my new precinct chair has been great at organizing, etc.
But I can’t go and file in a vacant area that I don’t live in. Vacancies occur for any number of reasons. The committee uses these vacancies as “opportunities” to purify the party. If you don’t believe me, talk to someone on the committee or someone that has tried to get through the process.
There is a real problem with that specific committee.
I went in front of the Precinct Chair Vacancy Committee. The nominee application required me to strongly agree, tend to agree, be neutral, tend to disagree or strongly disagree with many statements, one of which was “Homosexual activity should be incompatible with service in the US Military”. The box I checked created a bit of a firestorm for some members of the VC. Thank goodness logic prevailed after I explained my reasoning.
Thank you for sharing what happened at this meeting. Yet another reason why Republican’s can’t have nice things. And I agree completely. We need more Fernando Herrera’s and less whiners.
I agree, Fernando, and his whole family for that matter, are pretty classy. Regarding deputy voter registrars and the countless # of Dems that got registered: 1) I would guess the Dems have more time on their hands to be a deputy voter registrar because there are more of them out of work, 2) they are not spending their precious free time fighting amongst themselves and getting frustrated with each other like we are and 3) who knows who the hell they are registering.
I don’t see why we push being a deputy voter registrar. I tried it once. If we work full time and stay busy evenings and weekends with family or in club meetings or volunteering for things, etc., then we don’t have time to go get someone registered and also have time to go drop off the form at a tax office. If I speak to a conservative that wants to register to vote, then I am sure I can count on that person to mail in their own form saving me an hour or more of time and gas going to drop it off.
Without naming names, one of the people mentioned above that has been is a face for the Rep party, has always been moody everytime I have heard him speak. (not talking about you, David! ha ha ) In general, we need some fresh faces in the party that won’t turn good people off, and we need to get out the entrenched because all they do is use each other’s names for support/endorsements and they continue to get reelected. We do nothing but hurt our own party.
Fernando is a fighter. I respect him.