Menefee on election observers: 'You will be safe and your vote will be counted'

As Harris County registered voters cast their ballots on Tuesday, federal election observers are keeping tabs for possible federal voting rights violations, per reports from Houston-based media outlets. 

Houston CBS affiliate KHOU reported that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has stationed monitors at polling locations throughout Texas’ largest county for the 2022 midterms. 

Harris joins Waller and Dallas as the three Texas counties with observers at the polls, the station reported.

According to Houston ABC affiliate KTRK, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee penned a joint letter to the DOJ for assistance with the elections. 

“We want each voter to know that when you go to vote, you will be safe and your vote will be counted,” Menefee said, KTRK reported. “And two, they're going to be at the central count at the end of the night, and that's incredibly important because we don't just want the [Texas] Secretary of State's Office (SOS) in the room. We want an objective, neutral third party there so that at the end of the night if anybody is claiming any malfeasance, it's not a he-said/she-said situation." 

Poll hours are from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., the station reported.

Per KHOU, observers assembled by the GOP-led SOS and a task force from the Office of the Texas Attorney General are monitoring polling stations as well. 

Harris County Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum told the station that while he hasn’t talked to the DOJ regarding its monitors, he understands what their duties are. 

“Basically, they’ll just make notes and if they see something wrong, they’ll let us know that they saw something wrong,” Tatum, who succeeded inaugural officeholder Isabel Longoria over the summer, said, according to KHOU.

Citing Houston NBC affiliate KPRC, Houston Daily reported last month that Harris County officials assured Austin that the county reviewed the SOS’s elections audit and subsequently took steps to avoid the same mistakes it had been flagged for in the 2020 presidential election. 

The publication reported that Tatum took on the role of elections administrator after Longoria resigned amid the fallout of Harris County’s handling of ballots in last March’s Texas party primaries.