Harris County Election Worker Charged With Corruption

Kim Ogg, the Harris County District Attorney, announced this week that a Harris County Election Worker has been charged with corruption. Darryl Blackburn, the election worker in question, has been charged with six felonies in relation to the 2022 midterm election.

Blackburn was hired by the EAO in April 2021, and he oversaw the allocation of resources, which included the number of paper ballots provided to polling sites. However, he is accused of having another full-time job in the oil and gas industry in October 2021. He is alleged to have submitted time sheets to the county claiming to be working from home when he was working at his other job during a period of about 15 months.

Subsequently, Blackburn has been charged with five counts of tampering with government documents, which is a state jail felony punishable by up to two years in jail and a $10,000 fine. He also faces one count of theft, which is a third-degree felony that carries a potential prison sentence between two and 10 years with a fine of up to $10,000.

In a press conference, Ogg shared that "Defendant Darrel Blackburn, who worked in the now defunct election administrator's office, has been charged with six felony charges, five of them tampering with the document, one theft by a public official." "This individual was specifically assigned to see that paper was allocated properly see that paper was allocated properly... The result is he didn't do his job for Harris County."

Ogg further shared that "Mr. Blackburn's crime DID impact the election [results]."

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) and Republicans have been critical of Harris County officials because of how Texas' most populous county ran the midterm election.

Ogg said that Blackburn “not only stole thousands of dollars in the sense that he lied on timesheets." “He stole individuals' rights to vote, a basic constitutional right in our democracy because people on both sides were delayed in their voting, halted in their voting, rerouted in their voting... It’s compounded by the loss of public trust in our election system in Harris County. That is the real cost and it is priceless.”