In Harris County Voter Fraud Takes On a New Meaning

Perhaps it is appropriate that the assistant director of voter registration for Harris County, one Ed Johnson, testified twice this past legislative session at hearings on the infamous and now dead Voter ID bill. The bill that its Republican touts claimed would eliminate rampant voter fraud in Texas.

Appropriate in that as it has been revealed b y The Lone Star Project and aired at KHOU, Ed Johnson is something of an expert in voter fraud.

You could say that Ed Johnson is the King of Fraud, vis-à-vis things that have to do with voting.

Because in his role as assistant director of voter registration, Johnson is responsible for purging voters from voter rolls, and is the guy who not only opens sealed provisional ballots but is principally responsible for counting them. Or not counting them.

But Johnson has another job. A job that he does not openly advertise. As it turns out, Johnson is a paid political hack of the right wing of the Republican Party. You know, the people who pushed the Voter ID bill in the last legislative session, to the detriment of several other bills that would have had a more meaningful positive impact on the lives of Texans.

In addition to his day job at the Harris County offices, Johnson works for a company called Campaign Data Systems or CDS. The company is owned by State Rep Dwayne Bohac, but its website lists Ed Johnson as the principal technical contact person [but don't bother clicking on the hyperlink - since the original posting of this piece State Rep. Dwayne Bohac has taken down his company's website].

Now it’s OK, in my opinion, to have two jobs. It may even be OK to have a job that is inter-related with your other job, although in this case, the ethics of it is a little questionable. But what is not OK is to have that situation and not disclose it to anyone.

Not disclose it to say, the voting public. Not disclose it to say, the Senate committee on Elections, the body that invited Johnson to testify before it on the Voter ID bill. Twice.

And that is not just “not OK,” it’s odious. It is yet another confirmation of my suspicion that Republicans will preferentially lie, cheat and steal their way into office rather than run an honest campaign.

And of this I am certain. As long as Ed Johnson continues to be employed by Harris County, voters should doubt that their votes are being honestly counted.