What you need to know:
- Officials responsible for administering Houston’s elections need to pay more attention to detail and learn the city’s election laws, according to a memo from the city attorney’s office following an investigation requested by Mayor Carter Cole.
- City Clerk Tani Weiber Schoneman and her staff were responsible for three election errors due to misunderstandings and oversights, the memo states. A misprinted ballot was caused by a coder or printer error but could have been caught by Schoneman before the election, it states. Other issues were attributed to misunderstandings or process hiccups.
- Cole said he plans to work with the clerk to rewrite the city’s election code to help prevent future errors.
HOUSTON — Officials responsible for administering Houston’s elections need to pay more attention to detail and learn the city’s election laws, according to a memo from the city attorney’s office following an investigation requested by Mayor Carter Cole.
“My recommendation is that there needs to be much greater attention to detail by the clerk’s office, as well as more in-depth knowledge of the Houston Municipal Code and municipal election processes,” the memo, sent to Cole on Monday on behalf of City Attorney Joseph Levesque, said.