HOUSTON—
Millions of Texans will head to the polls for November elections this year, but allegations of voter fraud in Harris County have many concerned. Houston Votes is being called into question after several employees were fired for turning in fraudulent voter registration applications, officials said.Liberty Institute held a meeting on Friday asking why Houston Votes kept quiet on those alleged findings of fraud. The president of Liberty Institute wants to know why Houston Votes did not contact Harris County officials about these inaccurate registrations.
Since Houston Votes was called into question by the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector earlier this week, Liberty Institute, who represents King Street Patriots and its True The Vote initiative, provided more information about the issue.
"The importance of this is the county has its job, which is to take the information [and] make sure the roles are good so that every citizens vote is counted fully," Kelly Shackelford, president and chief executive officer of Liberty Institute, said.
Citizen volunteers for Liberty Institute uncovered numerous voter registrations that were incomplete, inaccurate or false, officials said.
"They went and they checked. They did their homework, and they simply turned that over to the county," Shackelford said.
According to Liberty Institute, dozens of registrars for Houston Votes were fired as a result of filing fraudulent applications.
"This is what should happen if we have this type of abuse of voter registration," Shackelford said.
Liberty Institute said it takes issue to talk that its finding were biased.
"Maybe to some people things are partisan, but there's actually citizens out there who just love their country and love voting," said Shackelford.
Of the 25,000 submitted applications, less than 7,200 were accepted and 5,000 were considered fraudulent.
Liberty Institute said the focus right now should be on the evidence and information.
"Which is exactly what King Street Patriots wants to do. [It's about] handing over the information, and letting the county, the Secretary of State, the Attorney General if necessary, clean that information up and make sure we have valid voters on the roles," Shackelford said.
Liberty Institute said the next step is to keep double-checking addresses to make sure they're correct so that everyone's vote will count 100-percent.
