LISE OLSEN, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Harris County officials and the Democratic Party have settled an ongoing legal dispute over denial rates of new voter registration applications – at least for now – though an attorney for party officials say they remain concerned that more voters appear to get rejected here than in other large counties nationwide.
Harris County Tax Assessor Collector Don Sumners said Wednesday via email that his office has agreed to provide Democrats with a database and specific documentation about how 1,250 registration applications were denied, according to the terms reached in talks last week. The agreement spells out that the office can charge no more than $1,500 for providing the information.
Sumners argued that Friday’s mediation was unnecessary.
“They could have received the data without causing the county to spend a lot of taxpayers’ money on attorneys, not to mention expending the time of my employees,” he said in an email to the Chronicle.
But Chad Dunn, an attorney for Democrats, argued Sumners’ office repeatedly obstructed requests for voter registration data both from the party and from a nonprofit group.
“I’m disappointed that it takes a federal lawsuit to get information out of our tax office. For four months we’ve been seeking information about denials,” he said. “By every objective measure Don Sumners’ office is the worst performing voter registration department of any major county in America whether you look at total number of applications rejected or a completely flat line voter roll.”
Democrats have repeatedly sought explanations about how many voter applications are denied as invalid or incomplete as part of a federal lawsuit filed in 2008. A resulting 2009 settlement, which remains under federal court review, prompted changes to voter registration review procedures.
Denials down since ’08
The number of voter applications rejected as invalid or incomplete has declined here since 2008, public records show. However, the most recent federal survey data from 2010 shows that Harris County still accepts a lower percentage of voter registration applications than most other urban counties nationwide.
All other counties in Texas that reported processing 50,000 new voter applications or more had lower denial rates in 2010, according to a Chronicle review of national government data.
Harris County reported denying 16,289 of 342,633 applications processed, or about 5 percent, compared to 3 percent in Travis County and Dallas County and only 2 percent in Bexar County,U.S. Election Assistance Commission data shows.
Harris County’s voter registration is about 1.88 million – a number that has remained relatively flat for six years.
Dunn argues that other counties don’t charge to make denied voters’ applications available for review, but Harris County has been uncooperative with requests both from the party and from the nonprofit Project Vote.
Charge ‘unreasonable’
Allecia Pottinger, an attorney for Project Vote, separately requested information about denial of voting applications in February. She told the Chronicle she has formally complained to the Texas Secretary of State about the county’s attempting to charge “unreasonable costs” for voter registration information she requested in February. The county’s estimate was $121,187.73 for uncertified copies and $1 million for certified copies, although Pottinger said her group was charged little or nothing for similar information in 2008.
According to a copy of the estimate provided to Project Vote, Harris County Assistant County Attorney Cheryl Elliott Thornton told Pottinger that it would take 1.3 million employee hours and more than $20,000 just to recopy and edit private information from an estimated 32,153 denials in 2011.
Read more at the Houston Chronicle.