6 OctOber 17 - 23, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents The Snail Mail Vote Here’s how many ballots North Texas counties have mailed and received so far. BY KELLY DEARMORE A once-respected national journalist brought a whole lot of unwanted at- tention to Tarrant County’s elections department when former 60 Minutes re- porter Lara Logan tweeted misinformation regarding mail-in ballots for the Nov. 5 gen- eral election. On Oct. 2, Logan quote-tweeted a post from the Dallas County GOP alleging that the county will be using questionable voting sys- tem components in the upcoming election. In her post she aimed her keyboard to the west of Dallas County, writing “Texas is in real danger from fraud in this election - Tarrant County is trying to send out 7 million mail in ballots & there is no sign enough people are taking this seriously. Ken Paxton & his office realize the threat. But too many are compla- cent & ignoring this.” In pretty quick fashion, Logan’s claim was debunked. It didn’t take much to do so for a number of reasons, but the Tarrant County Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that Logan’s base- less allegation was, in fact, false. At that point, his office had received just under 23,000 re- quests for mail-in ballots, had sent out only 4,705 and had received 81 of those back. Later, Logan would note on her X account that she had been mistaken and had meant to claim that Harris County, not Tarrant, had been guilty of mailing millions of ballots — again, without offering any evidence to sup- port her claim. She even seemed to get her geography wrong when attempting to correct herself, writing “Correction: This should have read Harris County, Houston. NOT Tarrant County, Dallas.” Once upon a time, Logan was a prominent voice in the CBS News empire, where she be- came a star as a 60 Minutes contributor and as CBS News’ chief foreign affairs correspon- dent. But since she left CBS in 2018, Logan has been a leading voice for conservative- backed conspiracy theories of all kinds. Scroll for a bit on her X timeline and you’ll see that she, like U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, thinks people can control the weather, but she’s also a vocal supporter of the right-wing efforts of the Dallas HERO amendments that we wrote about for a recent Observer cover story. Voting by mail has become one of the hot- test of hot buttons since the 2020 presidential election. Former president Donald Trump has long cited fraudulent mail-in ballots as being partly to blame for his loss in the 2020 elec- tion, although no proof of widespread fraud of any kind has been found from that election, and every lawsuit that has been filed on the matter has been defeated or dismissed. In Texas, Texas Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton has made what he has referred to as “election integrity” a primary issue as he has sought to create tighter restrictions for voting, although there hasn’t been any proof of widespread voter fraud in any recent statewide election. Logan chose the wrong county to pick on. Tarrant County seemingly goes out of its way to be transparent with its mail-in ballot num- bers, posting updates to its website regularly. As of Oct. 8, several days after Logan’s social media post, Tarrant County had sent out 24,329 mail-in ballots and 674 of those had been received back, according to Tarrant County’s website. We asked the elections offices from Dallas, Denton and Collin counties how many ballots they had sent out so far, and believe it or not, it was also nowhere near the 7 million Logan claims one county or another has mailed. “We have received and processed 13,174 requests for ballots by mail thus far for the November 5, 2024 election,” Kaleb Breaux, Collin County deputy elections administra- tor, wrote in an email on Oct. 4. “There have been 109 mail ballots returned to our office as of this morning.” A Denton County election staff member told us on Oct. 9 that 12,951 mail-in ballots have been sent out and 1,152 of the ballots that were returned have been processed. When reached for their numbers, the folks at the Dallas County elections office told us that as of Oct. 5, a total of 23,882 mail- in ballots had been sent out, and 500 of those have already been submitted. ▼ POLITICS CATS AND DOGS UNITE! DEMS FOR CRUZ, GOP FOR ALLRED. WILL IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE? BY KELLY DEARMORE H alloween season is a time of ghosts, things rising from the dead and other phantasms, so maybe it makes sense that the two Texans running for Senate have resurrected bipartisanship in their cam- paigns. Didn’t we clomp that in the head with a shovel and bury it back in 2008? Of course, Halloween is also the season of wearing masks and dressing up as things we are not ... so, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz a centrist? If he can pull that off, he deserves a full-size Snickers in his trick or treat bag. No candy corn for him. Ben Voth, associate professor of rhetoric and director of debate and speech programs at Southern Methodist University, notes that Democratic candidate Colin Allred and Cruz are certainly busy maneuvering in a certain way to be ready for Nov. 5. “October in almost every political venue leads to a movement from the edges of parti- sanship toward the center,” Voth says. “Allred and Cruz are following this pattern in hopes of finding the remaining elusive undecided voters.” In recent weeks we have seen both candi- dates boast of endorsements they’ve received from members of their opposing parties. That comes after Allred aired TV ads claiming he stands up to “radicals in both parties,” while Cruz has touted aisle-crossing legislation that will streamline the permitting process for bridge construction across the Rio Grande in Brownsville, Laredo and Eagle Pass. For Allred, being able to have someone from the other side publicly express their support of him is a way to show the histori- cally GOP-dominated Texas voting popula- tion that he’s not the extremist that Cruz has painted him to be. For Cruz, earning the en- dorsement of any Democrat official is his way of perhaps creating a more agreeable persona than he’s developed over a dozen years in the national spotlight. Voth says the method shared by the candidates can serve different purposes. “For Allred there is a greater degree of an- onymity that may allow him to define himself more easily away from the partisan margin,” he says. “As a Dallas-area House member, he is not a sensational congressional member. The Cruz campaign can be confident that he can count on conservatives to vote for him re- gardless of bipartisan brandishing efforts. Cruz had done some unusual legislative work cooperating with Bernie Sanders that might prove strategic in a possible move to the cen- ter in October.” Allred has landed the bigger names as supporters in former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney and former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who is co-chair for the newly announced “Republi- cans for Allred” coalition. Cruz, on the other hand, has gained the support of a number of lesser-known sheriffs and judges who make up Cruz’s “Democrats for Cruz Coalition.” “I am a lifelong Republican. I even served Texas in the Legislature as a Reagan Republi- can,” said another GOP member now stump- ing for Allred, former state Rep. Jason Villaba, in the press release. “But our current Senator seems to be more focused on his own ambition or serving the interests of extremists than helping ordinary Texans like me.” Although the Cheney and Kinzinger en- dorsements have garnered headlines, it’s not as though a prominent conservative with a loyal base of traditional GOP followers has made the unconventional jump to the other side in this case. It’s not a stretch to say that few should’ve been surprised that this pair of Republicans would be ready to publicly op- pose Cruz. Cheney and Kinzinger were two of 10 GOP House members who voted to im- peach President Donald Trump in 2021. Of those 10, only two remain in Congress. “To a large extent, the Kinzinger and Cheney endorsements do not move the voting needle much for Allred,” Voth says. “The per- ceptions of Kinzinger and Cheney within the Texas voting population are quite negative. Allred needs Texas-styled endorsements that do not appear to utilize the national Demo- cratic framework. Beto O’Rourke used that method to an arguable maximum in 2018 and in some ways it proved counterproductive.” In Texas, especially over the past 18 months, we’ve become accustomed to Repub- licans battling with fellow Republicans, which is another reason Cheney and Kinzinger’s en- dorsements may not pack as powerful of a punch as Democrats might hope. Whether it’s Gov. Greg Abbott and many House Republi- cans scrapping over school vouchers, or Attor- ney General Ken Paxton and the state House waging war over his impeachment, conserva- tives yelling at other conservatives for not be- ing the so-called “right kind of conservative” enough is old hat. The March primaries proved to be more successful for the governor in ousting those Republicans who stood in his way, but Pax- ton has seen his share of enemies, again, from within his own party, leaving office once he set his sights on them. The notion that voters are accustomed to party-infight- ing could keep Allred’s GOP friends from leaving a terribly large mark. “In the most recent set of elections, Re- publicans, much like [J.D.] Vance nationally, had to swear allegiance to Trump and | UNFAIR PARK | Tiffany Tertipes / Unsplash Counties from North Texas have already sent out more than 50,000 ballots for the Nov. 5 election >> p8
