Super Tuesday voting mix-up throws spotlight on Texas’ most populous county

CNN —

Kim Ogg, the Democratic district attorney in Harris County, Texas, is raising alarms about voting procedures there after she was turned away from the polls early Tuesday morning because her ballot had already been cast.

In a statement posted on X, Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth said that Ogg’s life partner – with whom the district attorney shares an address – had inadvertently cast a ballot in Ogg’s name during early voting last week.

Ogg, whose name is on Tuesday’s primary ballot, successfully voted later Tuesday, but she told CNN that the incident raises questions about how it happened in the first place, whether similar mistakes have affected voters in the same household and whether local election officials have a system to track such errors.

Ogg and her partner – Olivia Jordan – do not share a last name, and each had to present identification to vote.

“I’m the top law enforcement official in the third-biggest jurisdiction in the nation,” Ogg said in a telephone interview. “If it can happen to the district attorney, it can happen to anyone.”

In this September 2020 photo, a Harris County election worker prepares mail-in ballots to be sent to voters in Houston.

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An official in the Harris County clerk’s office said the issue had been resolved and the clerk would not have a further statement.

The incident comes as the county – a Democratic stronghold that includes Houston – remains under scrutiny from Republican state officials. Just last year, the county’s election office was dismantled and its responsibilities shifted to the county clerk and county tax assessor-collector under a law approved by the