Democrat Hubert Vo won the election for Texas House District 149, but the Republican-controlled Legislature may decide to overturn the election results. Under Texas law, the people can vote for one candidate and the Legislature can vote for another - and the Legislature's choice wins.
There are a number of scenarios where such a law might be used fairly; none of them occurred in the contest between Hubert Vo and Talmadge Heflin. Heflin's claim to contention is that over 150 votes - more than his 33 vote margin of defeat - were illegally cast. It is hard to tell to whom these votes went. Some who allegedly voted improperly swore under oath who they voted for - Vo's campaign says most of the votes went to Heflin; Heflin's campaign says that most of those votes went to Vo.
The Legislature is unlikely to resolve Heflin's challenge by calling for another election - such elections typically go against the person who filed the challenge by large margins. The other options are to seat Vo, or to overturn the election.
A Select Committee on Election Contests, led by Will Hartnett, a Republican from Dallas will meet to hear evidence and make a recommendation in how to proceed.
Overturning the election on these spurious grounds would go against the very basis of democracy. Under the best effort of counting the votes that could be made - and under the scrutiny of two separate recounts, Vo had more votes than his opponent. As can be best discerned, the (small) majority of the people want Vo to represent them. As such, Heflin should concede, rather than persist in his challenge to the Legislature. The only way he can win is by circumventing the democratic process.
Republican Party of Texas Chair Tina Benkiser doesn't seem to see circumventing democracy as a problem. Benkiser has been sending out e-mails to GOP supporters for the past several days claiming that Hartnett and the other Republicans on the committee were encountering pressure to bury the Vo-Heflin issue. In one e-mail she says, "There is no question of the illegal voting by Democrats in that election; it has been legally documented." She doesn't mention illegal voting by Republicans in that election and doesn't mention that there's no way to tell who the illegal votes went for. Nor does she mention that illegal Vo and Heflin votes were more likely the result of honest mistakes, not election fraud.
Evidence of voter fraud - if Heflin had any - would have come out earlier during court proceedings. Perhaps Benkiser refers to fraud that may have occurred in other Texas elections. If so, it has no bearing on District 149.
The case that Heflin does make in his final brief to the Legislature, filed last Friday, isn't compelling either. Bolstering his claims of "voter fraud" are such nefarious schemes such as sending a mail-in ballot by fax while residing in Harris County, voting in the wrong precinct - but not the wrong House district - and failing to sign the election records at polling locations. Other claims are poorly supported, including an attempt to extrapolate the will of 250 voters from the voting records of only 91 of them.
Of Heflin's and Vo's briefs, only Vo's brief lists the names of voters who testified, along with the relevant portions of their testimony. Vo's story is simply more credible and backed by better evidence.
Heflin may sincerely believe that he is more fit to govern than Vo. Unfortunately, democracy isn't set up to produce the right decision, or the best decision. Democracy is only set up to produce the fairest decision. Hubert Vo won a fair and free election and deserves his place in the Legislature.
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