Clerk contest centers on voting process
Candidates tussle on improvements to running elections
The race for Harris County clerk features a Republican incumbent against a Democratic member of the Harris County Board of Education vying for a new countywide office.
Democrat Diane Trautman says Republican clerk Stan Stanart has been too content with the status quo and has failed to take initiative to improve how Harris County runs elections and provides access to such vital records as court documents and marriage licenses.
“It’s what I call intentional indifference,” Trautman said. “It’s almost like saying ‘The voters of Harris County aren’t worth my time.’ ”
Stanart said that could not be further from the truth, adding that his training as a software engineer has made him an innovator in the office.
“As long as I’ve been here, I’ve been pushing technology of this office,” Stanart said. “I’ve made significant advances in the technology here.”
Both candidates have deep ties to Harris County and experience in elected office. Trautman, 68, is a longtime educator. She began her career in banking before spending two decades as a Houston ISD teacher and principal. She later earned a Ph.D. in education, where her dissertation focused on a leadership theory she developed, and taught at Stephen F. Austin State University.
Trautman ran unsuccessfully for Texas House of Representatives District 127 in 2006, as well as Harris County tax assessor-collector in 2008 and 2010. In each of those races, she won more than 40 percent of the vote. Trautman eked out a three-point victory in 2012 to become an at-large trustee on the Harris County Board of Education. Her term expires at the end of this year.
She sees the county clerk position as an opportunity to continue as an educator, especially when it comes to voting. Texas has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the country, and Harris County is no exception. Trautman said as clerk she could boost turnout by working harder to educate voters and allowing them to cast ballots anywhere in Harris County. Currently, residents can cast ballots at any of 46 early voting locations
but must go to their assigned precinct on Election Day.
Trautman said she has spoken with election judges, who are assigned to each polling place, who said they often have to turn away voters because they are at the wrong precinct. Or, voters mistakenly visit early balloting locations on Election Day.
“Some voters just give up and go home,” Trautman said.
She said Harris County should join 52 other Texas counties that now allow residents to vote at any precinct. She thinks the move can boost turnout by 2 to 5 percent. Though that sounds like a modest improvement, Trautman noted that since Harris County has 2.3 million voters, an increase in just 1 percent would be 23,000 ballots.
Stanart, 62, is an electronics and software engineer. He held several managerial positions at Compaq and also tested systems on the International Space Station. He joined Harris County government in 2007 as the manager of hardware information technology for the tax assessor-collector’s office.
Stanart first was elected in 2010 with 53 percent of the vote and won re-election four years ago with 54 percent. Both of those years featured high turnout among Republicans, which may leave him vulnerable this year, when researchers predict Democrats will be the majority of voters in Harris County. Countywide elected officials like Stanart and County Judge Ed Emmett likely will need some Democrats to cross the ballot for them in order to remain in office.
Stanart may struggle to persuade Democrats if they peruse his campaign website, which asserts without evidence that Hungarian-American businessman George Soros wants to control Harris County elections.
“If Harris County, larger in population than 26 states, allows socialists like Soros to control our elections, then Texas is next,” the site warns.
Stanart told the Houston Chronicle editorial board Oct. 2 the claim was based on a rumor that later turned out to be untrue, but he never changed the website. Weeks later, it remains on his site. It is not entirely a new sentiment for Stanart. The website for his first election in 2010 featured the slogan, “Stop socialism. Vote Republican!”
In an interview at his downtown office, Stanart said voters should view him as a competent professional whom they can trust to run the county’s elections and keep up with changing technology. He said his staff is in the process of digitizing all Harris County records dating back to the county’s creation in 1836.
The two-term clerk said he has made Harris County’s voting system more efficient by overseeing the creation of an iPad-based epoll book to check in voters at polling locations. They replace cumbersome paper versions, and can quickly toggle between English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese. Election judges also can use the iPads to look up the correct polling place for voters who show up at the wrong location, as well as determine whether someone already has voted.
Since Harris County designed the software in-house, Stanart said that likely saved the county hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in licensing fees.
Stanart excitedly describes blue-and-red plastic iPad stands he personally designed and 3Dprinted. The e-poll books were used at about 80 percent of polling places during the March primaries, and November will be by far the largest election to use them to date.
“We’ve modernized tons of different pieces of the elections process,” Stanart said.
Stanart said he does not oppose moving to countywide voting, but said Commissioners Court would need to make that decision. He said countywide voting could only be possible because of the shift to e-poll books. Otherwise, each polling location would need to keep millions of voter records on hand.
Fundraising for the county clerk’s race was modest compared to more high-profile contests like the county judge or commissioners. As of the first week of October, Stanart had raised $31,605 this year to Trautman’s $17,577.
Early voting begins Oct. 22.