votec software, bad geography placed Houston voters in the pinch

By Greg Moses

Better software combined with bad geography are the best explanations offered by Harris County voting officials for the large number of voters tagged as voting from out of county in the recently contested election for House District 149.

Comparing four years worth of reports of alleged illegal voting in Harris County to the Dec. report about voters of House District 149, the most striking result is an apparent increase in voters identified as moving out of county.

One has to go back to the last Presidential election of 2000 to find numbers that begin to compare with the 139 voters identified as voting from out of county in the hotly contested race for House District 149.

The reasons for that are twofold explains Ed Johnson, Manager of Harris County Voter Registration, in a conference call Thursday afternoon.

"About a year and a half ago we switched computer systems from a mainframe to a PC-based system with software provided by VOTEC," explains Johnson. The new VEMACS software supplied by VOTEC, also used in places such as Cuyahoga County, Ohio, allows voting officials to more quickly and precisely identify the jurisdiction of addresses supplied by voters when they fill out statements of residence on election day.

"That state representative district has the longest county border of any in Texas," explains Johnson. So by shape of sheer geography, the odds of voters crossing the county line are greater in HD 149 than anywhere else in Texas.

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