No qualified applicants for Tarrant County elections chief? Applications say otherwise

As Tarrant County’s Election Commission made its hire for an elections administrator June 16, county Judge Tim O’Hare made one thing clear to the public — the applicants for the job weren’t qualified.

“In terms of truly qualified applicants, that’s debatable,” O’Hare said, and he said the three finalists, including an election integrity activist who sued the former elections chief, were the ones who could do the job. None of them elections office experience, though one was an election judge.

But at least seven people with current or past salaried jobs at elections offices applied, and at least one of those candidates withdrew his application after setting up an interview. Another was never contacted for the job by the Election Commission, the five-person body in charge of hiring the new administrator.

The Star-Telegram reviewed all 52 application for elections chief — including online application forms, cover letters, resumes and recommendation letters — obtained through a Texas Public Information Act request.

There was Brian Hill, an elections director in Fayette County, Georgia, who worked various elections roles and at one point oversaw elections databases for the state’s 159 counties for the Secretary of State’s Office.

There was Karen Lawrence, a former assistant elections administrator in Tarrant County who had 13 years of experience working as a director of elections in counties across North Carolina.

There was Norma Townsend, who has worked in the elections software and supply field in Michigan, Illinois and Colorado since 2004.

There was a candidate from Nigeria who has worked for the International Foundation for Electoral Systems for 10 years.

The commission instead went with Clint Ludwig, the county’s chief deputy clerk, who has no elections experience.

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, said these four applicants in particular seemed “more than qualified” to run elections in Tarrant County.

“The biggest factor in terms of being able to be an administrator for elections is having some election experience,” he said, adding that “the best run elections are run by people who know how to run elections.”

Some members of the election commission said some applicants withdrew and there were other situations that led others not moving along in the process.

Hill wrote in an email to the Star-Telegram Friday morning that he was contacted for an interview but decided to withdraw after his interview was scheduled. In another email, he wrote that the move would have been big for him.

“That’s all, other than that; I would’ve loved the opportunity,” Hill wrote.

Townsend said Friday she was contacted for a background check, but never heard anything from Tarrant County about an interview.

The candidate in Nigeria did not return multiple direct messages on Facebook. When reached Thursday evening by a Star-Telegram reporter via phone, Lawrence declined to comment.

A representative for O’Hare did not answer questions about why he said there weren’t qualified candidates for the job. The representative instead sent O’Hare’s June 16 press release from Ludwig’s hire, and did not respond to an additional email.

Factors affecting interviews

Election commission member Allison Campolo wrote in a text to a reporter Thursday afternoon that certain candidates weren’t selected for the job because they had only overseen small staff sizes, or they were asked to interview but withdrew, or they couldn’t work in the country.

Rottinghaus said that a move from a smaller county to someplace like Tarrant County would make sense.

“Any experience beats no experience,” he said.

Campolo also said she didn’t want to select anyone who was “very apparently hyper-partisan.”

Campolo did not provide details about Hill, Lawrence and the candidate from Nigeria, but she said she put all three of them on her interview list.

In an email late Thursday, commission member and tax-assessor collector Wendy Burgess said interviews were offered to those with elections experience and that many were considered on their individual merits.

Some interview requests were not accepted by the candidates, some did not suit the candidate timeline and some were interviewed, Burgess wrote. She said Ludwig was the best pick for the job.

The commission, in addition to O’Hare, Campolo and Burgess, is made up of Tarrant GOP chair Rick Barnes and county clerk Mary Louise Nicholson.

Barnes did not return multiple phone calls and texts for comment. Nicholson was out of town, according to a representative from her office.

When Ludwig was chosen as the new administrator, it sparked concern about the selection process for commissioner Alisa Simmons.

“While I am committed to ensuring that Mr. Ludwig receives the necessary education, training, and resources to adapt to his new role, I and others are left hoping that his unrelated work experience will adequately prepare him to oversee elections,” Simmons wrote in a press release at the time.

Simmons said Friday she had requested a briefing for all the commissioners court on how the selection process worked for the elections administrator.

Other applicants included Texas GOP executive director John Beckmeyer. Another person from election integrity group True the Vote applied, too.

In an email Thursday evening, Beckmeyer wrote he was called in for an interview but decided to withdraw. He did not respond to multiple emails seeking clarification on why he withdrew.

The applicant from True the Vote could not be reached through a direct message on Facebook and could not be reached by phone or email at the True the Vote’s Houston office.

Elections administrator leaves

The previous elections administrator, Heider Garcia, resigned in a letter dated April 16 that cited a meeting with O’Hare and their differences in how to run transparent elections.

In that letter, Garcia wrote that his “formula to ‘administer a quality transparent election’ stands on respect and zero politics” and that he would not compromise his values.

Since Garcia’s resignation, top Democratic officials wrote a letter asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate whether GOP leaders like O’Hare had undermined minority voting rights. In addition to Garcia’s resignation, the Democrats cited the creation of Tarrant County’s election integrity unit.

Justice Department officials have said they would meet with the officials about the letter, though a meeting date has not yet been set.

One of the finalists for elections chief, Karen Wiseman, sued Garcia over public records related to the 2021 mayoral and city council races in Fort Worth. The county was ordered to give Wiseman the documents, and her case was dropped the day interviews for the job began.

During this past November’s midterm elections, Wiseman, who has been associated with a local election integrity group, also left a note in a Fort Worth voter’s mailbox inquiring about whether they had voted at a center in Stop Six.

Tarrant is one of 90 Texas counties that participates in countywide voting. Registered voters can cast their ballot at any vote center in the county.

Before the process began to hire a new elections chief, O’Hare told reporters he would not rule out hiring someone who had ever questioned the results of the 2020 Presidential Election.