HOUSTON — Harris County’s voter rolls are so inflated with ineligible names that they helped decide elections, according to a lawsuit from conservative activist Dr. Steven Hotze and several co-plaintiffs.
The case, Hotze v. Bennett, was filed in 2024 against Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Ann Harris Bennett, who also serves as the voter registrar. Hotze argues the county failed to comply with state and federal law requiring regular list maintenance. Judge Tanya Garrison allowed the suit to proceed this spring, and it now sits before the First Court of Appeals.
Hotze says the scale is staggering. His team compared the county’s 2.6 million registered voters with the U.S. Postal Service change-of-address file. The analysis flagged more than 586,000 questionable registrations, including 384,000 people who had moved out of Harris County, 26,000 who left Texas entirely, and more than 150,000 who moved within the county but never updated their addresses. Another 24,000 were tied to commercial buildings, churches or vacant lots.
“Over 205,000 illegal votes were cast in Harris County during the 2024 General Election,” Hotze said. “Had there not been 205,000 illegal votes cast by individuals who lived outside the county and state, Republicans would have swept all the countywide elections in 2024. Once the voter files are cleaned up of these illegal names, then Harris County will be a red county again.”
Texas law backs up Hotze’s point. Election Code §15.022 requires voter registrars to request USPS change-of-address data at least monthly and update rolls accordingly. Plaintiffs say Harris County has failed to do that, leaving the system wide open to abuse.
State audits have reached similar conclusions. The Texas Secretary of State’s preliminary audit of Harris County’s 2022 election found the county “did not follow state law” and reported a discrepancy of more than 9,000 voter records between county and statewide systems.
Auditors also flagged hundreds of registrations using commercial mailbox addresses and referred potential double-voting cases for investigation.
Courts have already shown what happens when illegal votes slip through. In May 2024, a state judge ordered a new election for the 180th District Court after finding 1,430 illegal votes in a race decided by 449. Nearly 1,000 of those ballots came from people who did not live in the county.
Past missteps add to the picture. In 2018, the registrar’s office admitted it had mistakenly suspended 1,735 voters after Republicans challenged registrations tied to P.O. boxes and vacant lots. Officials called it a staff error, but critics said it underscored sloppy record-keeping.
Hotze has called on state and local authorities to act.
“This vote fraud needs to be investigated by the District Attorney’s office, the Secretary of State, the Texas Attorney General and the Texas Rangers,” he said.
For conservatives, the message is clear. Hundreds of thousands of illegal names on the Harris County voter rolls invite fraud and can lead to false election results, undermining trust in the election process.
The Hotze v Bennett case is now a rallying point for those demanding that the Harris County voter registration list be purged of illegal names and then be accurately maintained on a monthly basis as required by the Texas Election Code. Whether or not the courts compel Harris County to act, the pressure will continue for Harris County to hold honest elections.
