Houston, TX – After days of no response to Secretary of State and Senator Bettencourt requests, and even Lt. Governor Dan Patrick formally weighed in during a Houston press conference yesterday, finally Co. Clerk Hollins sent a correct Daily Record of Early voting without any public explanation today. Repeatedly Clerk Hollins was asked about different vote totals his office generated because by law he must inform the Secretary of State of these totals daily. Since Clerk Hollins did not provided a public explanation, Senator Bettencourt is releasing information of his review of the reporting problems at 4 early vote centers that contributed the largest portion of Clerk Hollins reporting errors.

“First off, it is preposterous that the head of elections in the nations 3rd largest county won’t answer questions about election integrity,” said Senator Bettencourt. "As the chart below shows, 4 early voting centers had major discrepancies in the Daily Total of Early Voting that have finally been corrected by Clerk Hollins today. It is embarrassing public policy as this problem should have been easily fixed the first time it was brought to his attention,” he continued. “The discrepancies at these voting locations were large enough to easily been noticed by any competent review, and are not caused by any ‘reporting lag’ as he claimed. When the voting roster count is wrong, it is absolutely his responsibility to fix it because wrong counts could lead to voter disenfranchisement. The Public deserves an explanation from Clerk Hollins.” he continued.

The differences highlighted in the chart below shows 4 voting locations in Harris County that had different numbers recorded from the voting machine tally vs the poll book tally with very large discrepancies at those locations as the result. Those numbers have been corrected today on Harris County’s online voter roster but they offered no explanation to the public as to what happened to cause this error. Clerk Hollins office blamed the different numbers on a “slight reporting lag” however their own self-reported numbers continue to fluctuate, SOS estimates by 1,644 votes today.

For example, Juergens Hall Community Center voting location had a 1,539 vote difference over 3 different days. As of today, The Daily Record of Early Voting spreadsheet shows 1,108,903 votes cast, while the number reported by the Clerk to the Texas Secretary of State’s office is 1,109,025, and the Harris County voter roster shows 1,108,950. The remaining error appears to be concentrated in BBM votes by my senate office analysis and confirmed by SOS election division.

“What is stunning to me is that an elected official pointed out this error, the Secretary of State repeatedly asked for the numbers to be clarified and finally the Lt. Governor asked for these numbers to be corrected, so in the dead of the night the numbers were changed without any explanation,” concluded Senator Bettencourt.

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