KHOU (Houston) Report: Harris County Voter Registrar a GOP Consultant
Lone Star Project Documents Reveal Johnson Paid by Republican Candidates
With documents obtained from the Lone Star Project, KHOU (Houston) aired a story last night revealing that Ed Johnson , the assistant director of voter registration for Harris County, is a paid Republican campaign consultant. His company, Campaign Data Systems (CDS), has numerous Harris County Republican candidate as clients, including the Conservative Republicans of Harris County PAC, Senator Dan Patrick, and Congressman Michael McCaul. Republican State Representative Dwayne Bohac (HD 138) is also a principal owner of CDS. Johnson and Bohac are both listed on the Articles of Organization and on the CDS website as a person to contact. It is unacceptable that a county employee with unimpeded access to Voter Registration records, who can grant or deny the ability to vote to an individual, also works as a partisan political consultant.
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Johnson Reviews Ballots for Harris County Races
Ed Johnson is a high-level employee in the Harris County voter registration department. In sworn testimony he has been described as, "pretty much the one that does everything." (Deposition of Elizabeth Hernandez. Clerk/Processor)
It was also revealed that Johnson reviews provisional ballots in Harris County. Michelle Dixon, a 12 year veteran of the voter registration department said under oath that Johnson "opens the sealed envelopes of provisional ballot affidavits." 17 year employee Kim Shoemaker said that "Ed Johnson will stand over us" during provisional ballot review. (Depositions of Michelle Dixon and Kim Shoemaker). The Houston Chronicle reported that white out was used on many provisional ballots before delivery to the Ballot Board. (Houston Chronicle, 11/12/08) Dixon also said that Johnson was in charge of purging voters from the system. (Depositions of Michelle Dixon)
Johnson Makes Big Money off Republican Candidates
Ed Johnson and Dwayne Bohac’s company has collected more than $145,000 from Republican State Candidates alone . The Federal Candidate disclosures are harder to search, but CDS received more than $11,000 from Michael McCaul (CD-10) and John Culberson (CD-7). Harris County Candidates use Campaign Data Systems too. Republican Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos paid CDS more than $7,000 last cycle . Many of the people who paid CDS have competed in hotly contested races including Ken Legler (HD-144 in 2008), Martha Wong (HD-134 in 2006), and Talmadge Heflin (HD 149 in 2004) who lost his race by just 33 votes.
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