Minimal turnout marks early voting in HCAD director runoff election – Houston Public Media

This week, Harris County voters return to the polls for the third time in just over a month. Two runoff competitions are underway, both for new positions on the Harris Central Appraisal District board.

The second round of the competition for CEO position, Place 2, pits former state Rep. Melissa Noriega against Sam Houston State University entrepreneurship professor Kyle Scott for the CEO position. The race for third place CEO pits Amazon Web Services leader Pelumi Adeleke against small business owner Erica McCrutcheon. Both contests are nominally nonpartisan. But Noriega and Adeleke each identify as Democrats, while Scott and McCrutcheon identify as Republicans.

Early voter turnout in both elections was minimal, suggesting that voter fatigue is taking its toll. Only 19,911 people had voted as of Sunday evening, according to the Harris County Clerk’s Office Elections Department. That’s less than 1 percent of the county’s more than 2.5 million registered voters.

“I would expect that taxpayers would want to have people they trust, who will do what they believe is right and fair, in accordance with the laws that set the rules for valuing property for tax purposes” , said Lynn Krebs, research economist at Texas A&M. University of Texas Real Estate Research Center.

The Texas Legislature voted last year to require appraisal districts in counties with more than 75,000 residents to have three elected board members out of a total of nine. Texas voters then approved a constitutional amendment creating the elected positions in November. Kathy Blueford-Daniels, a former appointed board member, won the top-ranked trustee position in last month’s first round of voting.

Krebs said the newly elected officials have significant powers, especially when it comes to recruiting members of assessment review boards, the people who rule on controversial property tax bills.

“Not only must the board have a majority in who it selects for assessment review committees, but at least two of the three people elected must be in favor of each person they elect to a review committee .assessment review committee,” Krebs said. “So it’s a bit like having a majority within a majority.”

The last day of early voting for the HCAD board member runoff election is Tuesday. Election day is Saturday June 15.