Want to make Tarrant County fights over elections, fraud even worse? Bring the feds in | Opinion

Tarrant County has plenty of tension around the subjects of elections and voting, thanks to an ill-advised prosecutorial task force and the troubling departure of the county elections administrator.

Getting the Justice Department involved, at least at this stage, would only make it worse.

Several local Democrats, led by U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey of Fort Worth, asked the department to review county Republican leaders’ recent actions and recommend steps “to end the pattern in Tarrant County of voter intimidation and harassment.”

We’ve minced no words about the obsessive GOP attention to voter fraud and the wasted resources in the district attorney’s and sheriff’s offices devoted to it. But these are local decisions, and bringing in the Biden administration will only add fuel to the fire.

As usual, partisans are feeding their loudest base activists, while the majority of voters on all parts of the political spectrum suffer. Republicans are working to curtail voting convenience, in the false name of sweeping fraud that supposedly works against them. Democrats are sparking fear about intimidation and suppression of voters, especially minorities, even as turnout in major elections remains strong.

The result is less confidence all around in elections. And that’s bad for democracy.

The Democrats’ letter provided little solid evidence of intimidation. It seemed instead to argue that the elected Republicans’ focus on election fraud adds up to an atmosphere of suppression. Sorry, you’re going to need more than that to justify a federal investigation.

The county fraud task force has been in place only a short time. But we’ve just had municipal and school elections, and they appear to have run smoothly. District Attorney Phil Sorrells should speak regularly and publicly about the task force’s work. We don’t expect him to reveal details about ongoing cases, but more transparency about the types of complaints received and how they are investigated would help.

On County Elections Administrator Heider Garcia’s impending departure, there’s too much we still don’t know. In his resignation letter, he suggested County Judge Tim O’Hare wants to politically influence the elections office’s work. O’Hare denies it, and he says Garcia had failed to respond to an election judge’s complaint of possible intimidation.

O’Hare’s history as a partisan warrior makes him a flashpoint, but it’s important to remember that he alone does not control county government or elections. The other commissioners need to step up and demand answers and accountability.

The next administrator will be hired by the county Election Commission — O’Hare, County Clerk Mary Louise Nicholson, Tax Assessor Wendy Burgess and the chairs of the county Democratic and Republican parties. All must work to assure candidates that they won’t be micro-managed by elected officials or subject to partisan pressure from them and to find a hire who is professional and nonpartisan.

It’s time these officials spoke up on behalf of voters, too. Some deluded Republicans find fraud potential in every voter convenience they want to eliminate. Currently in the cross-hairs is countywide voting, which allows a voter to cast a ballot at any polling place.

The Texas Senate has approved a bill to eliminate the program, used in 90 counties that comprise a vast majority of the state’s population. Proponents say doing so will prevent people from voting twice and ensure accurate vote counts, but they can’t point to much evidence of either being a problem. The bill appears unlikely to advance in the House, but it never should have gotten this far.

In Tarrant County, plenty of people commute a fair distance and find it much easier to vote near work or somewhere near their daily errands. And a lot of them are Republicans in the northeastern suburbs. The constant bugaboo of election fraud has GOP leaders working against their own interests.

Vigilance on behalf of legal, fair elections is a good instinct. But when partisans chase ghosts, the unintended consequences aren’t good for voters.