Falsified government documents
and suborning of perjury among charges made by Leo Vasquez, Assessor-Collector
& Voter Registrar for Harris County.

HOUSTON – Much is at stake in the upcoming
November election. Every seat in the
United States House of Representatives is in play and the outcomes of these
races will determine who will lead the Congress of the United States beginning
in 2011. Throughout Harris County
important races for state reps, the state Senate and judgeships are on the
line.

Your future, your security, your
taxes, your job or an opportunity for employment, and the security of your
rights will be affected for the good or the bad based on the outcome of the
November election.

In Texas politics we’re used to
hard-fought races, even some good old-fashioned political mudslinging and backbiting, but we Texans want our elections to be fair and free from
all of the criminal shenanigans now so closely associated with Florida and
Chicago politics. Unfortunately, it
appears as if Chicago-style thuggery has now made its way into our political
process.

Leo Vaquez, Harris County
Assessor-Collector and Voter Registrar, released an August 24, 2010 a report detailing
a stunning array of widespread, highly organized voter fraud that, unless
stopped immediately, will almost certainly affect the outcome of Harris County
races and possibly negate your legal vote.

Mr. Vasquez says, “Unfortunately,
it is my duty to share with you today that the integrity of the Voter Roll in
Harris County, Texas appears to be under an organized and systematic attack by the group operating under the name ‘Houston
Votes’. Houston Votes is the voter
registration machine of the ‘Texans Together Education Fund.’ Houston Votes and Texans Together have
effectively emerged as our area’s new ACORN organization.”

Vasquez released a 72 page PowerPoint
document with incredible detail of the fraud, phony signatures, and even voter
registration applications filled out by people who checked the box “Non-Citizen”. The result is that the voter registration
office has been flooded with bogus or duplicate registration forms that have
tied up staff and cost taxpayers thousands of dollars in wasted time.

Mr. Vasquez’s investigation has
found nearly 1,600 cases of multiple applications from the same voter, over
1,000 applications from citizens already registered as well as over 300 from
people too young to vote.

Houston Votes, which pays staff
to collect voter registrations from citizens has turned in 25,640 registrations
generating 7,193 new registered voters and resulting in 3,531 applications
which were rejected because either Texas Drivers License numbers and/or Social
Security numbers did not match. Houston
Votes has also generated 129 felon rejection of applications and submitted
1,133 applications where the No ID box was checked and turned in 1,323
applications after the 5 day statutory deadline.

It would be easy to assume that
Houston Votes has simply hired over-zealous or blatantly incompetent people to
act as “deputies” in securing these voter registration applications, but
Vasquez’s investigation has uncovered far more.

Part of the issue with Houston Votes
is that they operate using a “pay-per-packet” policy. Mr. Vasquez explains, “A payment per piece
set up risks incentivizing workers for focus on quantity with a disregard of
quality. If I were funding Houston Votes and Texans Together, I would be quite
upset that instead of paying for six new registrations I was instead paying for
the same person being registered six times. Or, worse yet, an already-registered
voter being re-registered multiple times.”

The investigation by Mr. Vasquez
has also uncovered complaints from voters in Harris County who report that
Houston Votes personnel have lied to them in order to coerce voters to fill out
new voter applications. Those lies include
statements that the tax office computer has suffered a computer malfunction
requiring voters to re-register, that voters will be required to carry a new
plastic voting card in order to vote and that the card will only be issued if
the voter re-registers. Lastly, voters
have been told that if they do not re-register they will be removed from the
voter registration rolls. All of these
are false statements, says Mr. Vasquez.

Mr. Vasquez stresses that the
voter registration rolls are intact and operating properly, and wants to remind
voters that if they have already registered there is no need to register
again. If you have registered again
after being persuaded to do so by anyone and want to know your status you can
visit www.hcvoter.net or
call (713) 368-2200.

Mr. Vasquez also notes that many
volunteer organizations do a very good job of helping to register voters, “We
welcome and encourage the efforts of all interested citizens and organizations
who, within the boundaries of the law, work to help register voters.” The League of Women Voters works to register
voters and their registrations are 99% accurate.

“In trying to find a positive out
of this, it is my sincere hope that this episode will bring more attention to
the general public about the importance of voter registration. Hopefully this
will also spur legislation on both the Federal and State levels to put more
teeth into election fraud penalties. Under the Texas Election Code most of
these violations are only misdemeanors, albeit hundreds of misdemeanors at a
time. Submitting forged signatures to a governmental entity may be a more
serious crime,” says Vasquez.

Houston Votes is now refuting all charges made by Mr. Vasquez and has promised to answer the charges in a press conference to be held tomorrow morning at 10:30 am.

Houston Votes says, “Houston Votes will answer and
refute the reckless allegations made by Harris County Tax
Assessor-Collector and Voter Registrar, Leo Vasquez, on Tuesday, August
24.

“Leo Vasquez made reckless and false allegations against Houston
Votes, the organization, in an apparently coordinated, partisan effort to
suppress voter registration and to intimidate citizens into not voting.

“Sadly, this type of shameful tactic has worked all too well in the
past. Houston Votes is committed to non-partisan voter registration
and helping register the over 600,000 citizens eligible to vote who are
not even registered.”

ABOUT HOUSTON VOTES:

Houston Votes describes itself as
follows, “Houston Votes, a project of Texans Together, is a nonpartisan voter
registration drive in Harris County. Its goal is to register 100,000 new
voters by the October 4th deadline and turn out 50,000 new voters on election
day.”

ABOUT TEXANS TOGETHER: 

The members of the Board of Directors
for Texans Together are:

James Aldrete (Austin) is president of Message Audience
Presentation, a public relations and political communications company.

Ambassador
Christopher Ashby (Houston) has had a distinguished career in
international banking, working in Europe and Asia as well as in the United
States. In 1997, Mr. Ashby was appointed Ambassador to Uruguay by President
Clinton where he served until 2001.

Ann De
Llano (Austin) is the founder and principal of Capital City
Solutions, a public interest advocacy firm. She recently created and
implemented an innovative, award-winning GOTV effort aimed at young minorities
using hip-hop music and video in Harris County.

John Donisi (Austin) is an attorney with the firm of
Drenner & Golden Stuart Wolff. He
has served as Special Assistant to Texas Governor Ann W. Richards and General
Counsel to the Texas Senate’s Jurisprudence Committee.

Cris Feldman (Houston) practices civil litigation in
Houston with Rusty Hardin & Associates. He has won many awards for leading
the successful civil lawsuit against Tom Delay’s TRMPAC that exposed corporate
corruption in Texas.

Fred Lewis (Austin) is the founder and President of
Texans Together Education Fund, Inc. He has worked as a public interest
attorney, non-profit leader, and community organizer for years.

Rita Lucido (Houston) practices family law and is a named
partner in Cothrun and Lucido. She has been involved in numerous civic
activities, including as a board member of Planned Parenthood of Houston,
Jane’s Due Process, DiverseWorks, and Texas Women Lawyers.

Keir Murray (Houston) is the founder and principal of KLM
consulting, a political, public affairs, public opinion and communications
consulting firm. He has has served as a
consultant to the Mayor of Houston, Houston Community College, Houston Metro,
and Sheriff Adrian Garcia.

Andres Pereira (Houston) is an attorney who practices
mass tort litigation and is involved in numerous civic organizations.

Keith Wade (Houston) has been involved in community and
political organizing for 30 years in Houston and the African-American
community, including running three congressional offices.

Some notable members of the Texans
Together Education Fund Advisory Board include:

Jay Aiyer, a former member of the
Houston Community College governing board, pled guilty in June of 2007 to a
misdemeanor charge of tampering with a governmental record and did not seek
re-election thereafter.

Robbie Ausley, an Austin resident and
board member of Planned Parenthood, who has raised millions of dollars for the pro-abortion
organization.

Sissy Farenthold, longtime liberal
Democrat and former Texas house member.

Bruce Elfant, a Travis County constable.

Sherry Greenberg, a former Texas State
rep and now a faculty member at the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

Kristi Thibaut, current democrat State
Rep for District 133 in Houston.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading …

About John G. Winder

John G. Winder has spent 29 years in the broadcasting industry as an on-air report, General Manager and Executive in both radio & television.

• Mail

|

• Web

|

• More Posts (781)