Houston Heights

A pair of electorally-minded readers send in 2 separate claims that Prop. 1 — the H-E-B-backed Heights alcohol sales one, not the provoke-Texas-into-reforming-education-funding-by-messing-with-the-system one — didn’t show up on their ballots yesterday, even though they were each registered to vote in what the Tax Assessor’s office calls the boundaries of the historic dry zone. Hector DeLeon of the Harris County Clerk’s outreach department told Swamplot earlier today that in the 1 case of a missing ballot option they’d heard about and looked into — in the context of around a 25 percent and thousands-of-voters margin of victory for the pro-beer-and-wine-sales folks —  the problem appeared to be a voter not seeing where on the ballot the proposition was listed, rather than an actual missing option.

DeLeon does say, however, that while it’s extraordinarily rare, it’s not impossible that the local option election could have be left off of a few ballots. An election worker has to select some location info by hand in the process of generating the 4-digit voting machine access codes that voters get upon signing the polling place ledger; DeLeon says that can (and occasionally, does) leave room for a who-votes-on-what mistake, especially in the case of certain unusual election zones (like, say, the Lost City of Houston Heights). One reader claims a poll worker at the Helms Community Learning Center on W. 21st St. told him that this sort of input error had been made on some ballots shortly after the polls opened, and had been corrected for the voters who stuck around to sort it out and get a new code issued. (The reader, who had already cast their ballot and came back later to learn more about what had happened, says they didn’t get to cast a new one.) DeLeon also says that the county clerk’s office doesn’t keep any records of access code issues if they’re caused by human error and considered resolved at the site — so there would be no official documentation to check against the reader’s story.

• Previously on Swamplot: Heights Dry Zone Residents: Did Prop. 1 Not Show Up on Your Ballot Today?; H-E-B’s Plan and Backup Plan for the Double Decker Heights Dry Zone Store; H-E-B Will Double Down on a Heights Dry Zone Store or Not Build At All; Yes, The Heights Dry Zone Petitioners Really Did Collect Enough Signatures For a Vote; Heights Dry Zone Signature Gatherers Return from the Hunt Victorious; Former Fiesta Site Preps for Teardown as Heights Dry Zone Petitioners Circle; H-E-B Would Like To Plant a Store in a Wetter Heights Dry Zone; Somebody’s Trying to Legalize Beer and Wine Sales in the Heights Dry Zone

Photo: Ed T [license]