HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — One of the nearly 800 new Texas laws eliminates the elections administrator position for Harris County alone.
That’s forcing the state’s largest county to change how it runs elections just weeks out from the start of early voting for November’s election.
More than half of Texas' counties, including large ones like Dallas, Tarrant and Bexar, use an appointed administrator to run elections.
Harris County started using that system nearly three years ago. Now, those duties are reverting to the two elected officials that used to handle them.
"You can't have elections where you lose the trust of voters," said state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, the Republican lawmaker who authored the bill.
Bettencourt said that's what happened last year with two elections in Harris County under two different elections administrators.
Some of the alleged problems include malfunctioning voting machines and paper ballot shortages.
"And that should've alone been somebody's dismissal notice," the state senator said.
Senate Bill 1750 returns voter registration duties in Harris County back to Tax Assessor-Collector Ann Harris Bennett, who was elected in 2017.
County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth will handle election duties, which she had extensive experience with before being elected in 2020.
"This is not our first rodeo," Hudspeth said Friday afternoon.
She told reporters that she's spent months working with other county offices to prepare for the transition. Friday morning, she deputized more than 100 election staff members.
Hudspeth told KHOU 11's Adam Bennett that she'll continue building on the work done since 2022 to avoid problems in 2023.
"We will now have a system in place to better communicate from our vote centers to our election headquarters, to our call centers, all the way around the operations. So there's a new system in place. It's already in action. We've been using it and we'll continue," she said.
Laura Aranda Smith, a spokesperson for Ann Harris Bennett, said her office will continue doing voter registration outreach in four languages.
Smith also says registered voters in Harris County should visit harrisvotes.com to ensure their information is correct before the October 10 voter registration deadline for the November election.
Smith told reporters Bennett was unable to attend Friday’s news conference because she had a family member in critical care.
Even with the new law now in effect, County Attorney Christian D. Menefee said last week the legal battle isn't over.
“I think our fight’s going to be different. It’s not going to be a fight over whether we’re going to transition those duties back, but it’s a fight over whether this law is constitutional.”
The next hearing on the legality of the bill will be held on November 28.
Another bill authored by Bettencourt, Senate Bill 1933, also took effect on Friday. That law gives the Texas Secretary of State the authority to investigate election irregularities if complaints are filed.