Harris County's roll of registered voters will hit 2 million for the Nov. 4 election, according to the voter registrar — a record high that should surpass the total for all of Iowa and at least 22 other states during an exciting presidential campaign.
But the local list also has triggered controversy, surprises and skepticism about who registers and how aggressively the county recruits, and rejects, potential new voters. Even the forecast of 2 million — made by voter registrar Paul Bettencourt, a Republican seeking re-election as tax assessor-collector — is in dispute.
For starters, 2 million citizens older than 17, in a county of roughly 4 million people, would represent only meager growth from the last presidential election here. The 2004 roll fell only 60,000 shy of 2 million.
On the other hand, the roll dropped to 1.8 million a year ago, due in part to Bettencourt's groundbreaking efforts under state and federal law to remove outmoded or improper registrations.
Now, consider what the voter roll shows about the record-shattering voter turnout for the county's March 4 presidential primaries. Those elections were preceded by several voter registration drives as Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton fought for the Democratic nomination and John McCain emerged as the GOP favorite.
But of the 407,102 voters in the Democratic contest, only 9,850 had never registered to vote in Harris County before this year, according to statistics developed for the Houston Chronicle by Bettencourt's staff. And of the 169,448 people who voted in the Republican primary, a mere 2,454 had never registered here.
And so the first shot in an otherwise off-the-radar local political battle is fired. I say the "first shot" because this race is going to get ugly. The Democrats are running Diane Trautman opposite Paul Betencourt.
By all accounts, Bettencourt has done a good job with the Tax-Assessor/Collector's office while at its head. The office is now modern, customer-friendly (as customer friendly as a Gov't office can be) and runs in an efficient manner. So much for the substantive issues. What Bettencourt also is, and this is a deal-breaker to the Dems) is a true believer in the "Church of Dan" Republican faction. That group of local Republicans who consider themselves the only "true" Conservatives, all while embracing very big-government ideals when social programs are brought to the fore. In short, they want the Government out of business and the Church in public life. That's double-dipper insurance that the Dems will try to get you.
Unfortunately for the Dems the candidate they picked is quite simply not qualified to hold the office. Ms. Trautman may be a very, very nice lady, she may be a loyal Democrat, but she's also a lifetime educator without the management experience needed to run an office of this magitude. Her campaign website doesn't mention anything about her plans for the office, only to provide an outline of what the office does which, by all accounts, is already being done well by Bettencourt. So much for the issues.
So you get what we have here today: political rumour passed off as a controversy. A controversy which could go away if only someone would request a list of organizations that Bettencourt's roving bands of voter registrars actively solicited for registration drives. I'm sure they have one, probably one more exstensive than the handful of organizations listed in the story. (ACORN, the League of Women voters, et. al.) Of course, that would mean having a reporter leave the office on a hot summer's day, probably not going to happen.
Curiously absent from this report was a comment by Trautman herself. Maybe she's letting (Harris County Democratic chairman) Binberg do the dirty work for her, choosing to rely on the "Obama factor" to push her over the top?
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