By a margin of two to one, voters rejected the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) adopted by Houston’s City Council in May 2014. The ordinance prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and private employment on the basis of 15 protected characteristics,… Continue Reading
The current field of announced and likely candidates in the 2015 Houston mayoral race is the largest and strongest in the last 35 years. There are six candidates (former Democratic congressman Chris Bell; councilman Stephen Costello; Harris County Sheriff Adrian… Continue Reading
The Supreme Court’s decision last June in Shelby County v. Holder struck down a section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that required nine states, including Texas, to obtain federal approval before making any changes in state and local election laws. The city of Pasadena, Texas, lost no time in placing on November’s ballot a proposal to adopt a mixed plan of single-member and at-large representation for its city council. The ballot initiative, Proposition 1, called for the replacement of two single-member district council seats with two at-large seats. Opponents of the proposition claimed that this change would significantly harm the ability of Hispanic voters to elect candidates of their choice. Continue Reading
District I is one of two single-member majority Hispanic city council districts in Houston and the only contested Hispanic seat in this year’s general and runoff election. Given the increasing focus on Hispanic voters and their likelihood of becoming a… Continue Reading
Everyone complains about the weather, but few do anything about it. This may not be true for local election officials’ response to the challenges Hurricane Sandy posed in conducting the 2012 election. Researchers have consistently found that inclement weather on and before Election Day has had a significant and negative effect on voter turnout; this was no less true in jurisdictions most adversely affected by Hurricane Sandy last fall. In a report prepared for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, I found voter turnout declined 2.8 percent between 2008 and 2012 in counties most impacted by the storm. This effect persists when controlling for a host of factors specific to the 2012 election, individual counties and their respective states. Continue Reading
There are many hazards and risks associated with hurricanes and severe weather that require our attention and preparation. One of these threats is us. In 2005 more than half the residential population of Harris County – about a million persons… Continue Reading
How confident are we that the votes we cast in this year’s presidential election will be counted accurately? This is a standard question researchers ask voters to assess the many different ways we cast and count ballots. We all don’t… Continue Reading