Trump conspiracy nuts run off Tarrant elections chief. Now, vote-integrity threat is real | Opinion

Wanted: Elections administrator who understands the intricacies of state and federal law and can adhere to them while fending off partisan bloodhounds. Requires the ability to listen to conspiracy theorists without laughing. Must cater to the whims of various politicians who refuse to lead on the issue of fake election controversies. Ability to tolerate online harassment, personal insults (including racism) and threats to family members is a plus.

Tarrant County has this impossible job posting to fill, now that Elections Administrator Heider Garcia has announced his resignation. Garcia has been harangued and blasted in his five years on the job. In his letter, he suggested that new County Judge Tim O’Hare, in a meeting with Garcia, outlined a vision of politically influenced election operations.

Neither Garcia nor O’Hare, a Southlake Republican, are talking publicly about the meeting that Garcia mentions, so there’s a lot we don’t know. Perhaps there’s a misunderstanding or a lesser disagreement.

But here’s what we do know: Unsubstantiated fear-mongering from some Republicans on election security is relentless, and party and elected leaders are being pulled along. Rather than defending the integrity of processes and outcomes that have been investigated over and over, they choose to indulge irrational paranoia.

It’s rooted in the cult-like refusal by some voters to accept that former President Donald Trump was unpopular and incompetent enough to lose Tarrant County to Joe Biden in 2020 and win Texas by a tighter margin than any Republican nominee in decades.

If Garcia’s departure is the result of pressure to go along with the latest demands of this crowd, whatever they are, it’s a frightening omen for our future elections.

No level of scrutiny or transparency is enough for the true believers, and someone with the conservative credibility of O’Hare must stand up and say: enough.

Every audit or review has found no substantial problems with Tarrant elections. And Garcia has opened the door as widely as he could without taking the hinges off. Cameras broadcast vote counting. He made room for determined hobbyists to come into the elections office and review ballots and documents of a past election.

Garcia recently testified in Austin against a bill that would eliminate countywide voting, the system by which any voter can go to any polling place and cast a ballot. Texas’ biggest counties all have it, and there are no appreciable problems with it. If it’s been a source of fraud, no one can muster any proof. O’Hare opposes countywide voting, though, and perhaps that was a source of tension.

Or maybe Garcia is tired of attacks on him personally, including his Venezuelan heritage, and threats about which he has testified before Congress, and he didn’t perceive that the new county government would back him up.

O’Hare won resoundingly in both the primary and general elections last year, in part by campaigning on steps to ensure greater election integrity. He, along with District Attorney Phil Sorrells and Sheriff Bill Waybourn, announced the creation of a unit of investigators and prosecutors to attack fraud.

So, O’Hare’s voice on the issue matters, but it is hardly the only one. County commissioners need to find out exactly what happened in the meeting Garcia describes in his letter.

The other Republican commissioners, Gary Fickes of Colleyville and Manny Ramirez of northwest Tarrant County, would do well to ask tough questions. It’s the right thing to do, and they might serve their party, too, by standing up to fevered, false and dangerous assaults on our elections processes.

This story was originally published April 17, 2023 at 6:09 PM.