On Tuesday, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg held a press conference to announce corruption charges related to the Harris County elections in November of 2022.
The press conference was at the Criminal Justice Center in downtown Houston and began around 1:40 p.m. on Tuesday. Ogg was joined by Michael Levine, Chief ADA Public Corruption, as well as Ryan Christian with the Texas Rangers.
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Darryl Blackburn, who was employed with Harris County and in charge of allocating paper to polling locations, was charged with six felonies. During the press conference, Levine informed Ogg that Blackburn is now in custody, and his bond has been set at $65,000.
This announcement came more than a year after Ogg first called for the election to be investigated. Texas Governor Greg Abbott also called for an investigation into issues with this election.
In the 20 months since the vote, an audit released by Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson uncovered that Harris County had “multiple failures conducting the election.” This claim was made in regard to voting centers running out of ballot paper and collecting voter paperwork incorrectly.
Some polling centers even turned away potential voters due to a lack of available ballot resources.
During the presser, Ogg said that multiple official complaints were filed in correlation with the 2022 election, which led to a required investigation. She added that the investigation determined that the disruptions in voting did not disproportionately impact one political party.
“People on both sides were delayed in their voting, halted in their voting, rerouted in their voting. I don’t know that we’ll actually know the damage there,” Ogg said.
Blackburn was hired to work on the election in a position working exclusively from home, while he also held an in-person job at an oil and gas company that he didn’t disclose to Harris County.
Shockingly, Ogg revealed that Blackburn worked an eight-hour shift in-person for his other job on the day of the election.
“While chaos was ensuing at polling places all over Harris County, Darryl Blackburn was at work at his other job—the real job—and was not minding his post. [He] came back, but it was too late.”
Ogg and Levine said that the scheme was not fueled in an attempt to sway the election, but rather personal greed from Blackburn.
“If anyone at the elections office had gotten on LinkedIn, they could have discovered it,” Ogg said.
The press conference was streamed online on KPRC 2.
A statement from Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth. pic.twitter.com/lrlmhJEX5E
— Office of County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth (@harriscotxclerk) August 13, 2024
Harris County GOP Chairman Cindy Siegel issued the following statement after the press conference:
“I am not surprised that this was uncovered by the Texas Rangers in their investigation of the 2022 General Election. That election was a complete debacle from voting machines not working to the large number of polling locations that ran out of paper – the majority of which were in Republican neighborhoods. Republican voters were disenfranchised and their belief in a fair and secure election process was destroyed by the corruption that was pervasive in the Harris County Election Administrator’s Office.
County Judge Lina Hidalgo and the Democrat- controlled Commissioner Court ignored what was the worst run election in Harris County history. Ultimately, Lina Hidalgo, Rodney Ellis and Adrian Garcia are the ones responsible for what occurred in 2022 and should be held accountable.
In 2022, Democrats called Harris County Republican voters and candidates “election deniers.” Furthermore, the County wasted taxpayer dollars fighting in the courts legislation that Senator Bettencourt sponsored that eliminated the Election Administrator position and returned the running of elections to the duly-elected County Clerk.
County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth has over the last year worked to resolve several of the serious problems that existed under the former election administrators. However, restoring the voters’ faith (particularly Republicans) will take time and effort. Until that time the Harris County Republican Party will continue to take what steps are necessary with trained election workers, poll watchers and legal team in place to ensure that the ballots cast are secure every step of the process and accurately recorded.”
Harris County Democratic Party Chairman Mike Doyle sent KPRC 2 the following quote:
“What we got after years of fake election denial claims and hundreds of thousands of dollars of wasted taxpayer money is what we started with -not a single voter was prevented from voting in our 2022 election in harris county. And we know that pointing to a single employee, even if actually working two jobs, as proof of election corruption, is beyond silly at this point. It is long past time for Ted Cruz, Paul Bettancourt, and their cronies to stop the lies about our elections.”