Tuesday the Houston Chronicle ran a clarification on Harris County Democratic Party Chair Gerry Birnbergs continuing attacks on former Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt current Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Leo Vasquez and the voter registration department under Republican leadership.
The Chronicle said that they quoted Democratic Party Chair Birnberg ... using an incorrect figure regarding the number of voter registration applications rejected in 2008.
What Mr. Birnberg has said repeatedly in the last ten days was that Paul Bettencourts voter registration office had 70000 rejections of voter registration applications in 2008 alleging tens of thousands of voters were somehow left off the voter rolls in the Presidential Election.
Nothing could be further from the truth as the Houston Chronicle statement continues:
That (wrong) figure was repeated in a subsequent editorial. During 2007 and 2008 the voter registration office rejected 3518 persons who applied for voter registration cards.
Thats right the Democratic Party was only off by a factor of 20 times the actual number and it owes Mr. Bettencourt and Mr. Vasquez an apology for literally trying to make a federal case out of these bogus numbers and attacks. Partisan attacks have continued over the last ten days as well from the State Democratic Party their allies at the Lone Star Project (a George Soros funded organization) and liberal bloggers out to run a smear campaign against the office. Nothing in the recent lawsuit settlement addresses past voter registration procedures or mentions any statistics whatsoever. Its clear that all the democrats want to do is attack a voter registration system that successfully placed 1.964 million people on the rolls in time for a hotly contested Presidential election. Im proud of what both our former and current Republican Tax Assessor-Collectors are doing in trying to fight these lies by the Democrats. And Id ask for your help to maintain the good names of these two Harris County public servants -- spread the word today and send on my comments here to your friends family and co-workers.
