I personally have to take objection to the manner in which the AG opinion issued yesterday about Prairie View A&M students and voting was presented on this site. In particular, it was written here that:

"District Attorney Oliver Kitzman, who's white, earlier stated that students at historically black Prairie View A&M weren't automatically eligible to vote in county elections. But Abbott, who issued a 15-page legal ruling, says it's well established in Texas law that college students can vote locally -- if they designate their campus address as their residence."

Mr. Kitzman never said that Prairie View students were automatically "ineligible" to vote in the Waller County. He simply wrote a letter stating that the law required that they be RESIDENTS of the county to do so. The AG's opinion says the same. The story carried on this website appears to be a summary of the story carried by the Houston Chronicle which from day one has greatly mischaracterized the issue. The Kitzman letter was written in response to complaints from citizens that election fraud was being committed in the city of Prairie View - where the Secretary of State's own records show that:

541 student voters indicate they live on campus at Prairie View A&M and their mailing addresses are at locations outside of Waller County.

2,768 student voters represent that they are housed at University Village on campus which only has a capacity to house 1,836 students.

185 student voters who claim to live on campus all have the same mailing address at P.O. Box 519, Prairie View, Texas.

74 student voters who claim to live on campus all have the same mailing address at P.O. Box 5028, Prairie View, Texas.

61 student voters who claim to live on campus all have the same mailing address at P.O. Box 5502, Prairie View, Texas.

18 student voters who claim to live on campus all have the same mailing address at P.O. Box 4346, Prairie View, Texas.

Although the AG disagrees, I personally think these figures look just a wee bit "fishy." How can one single post office box constitute a legal voting "residence" for 185 people? According to the AG's opinion, that is all ok. Very early on in the process, local activist leaders turned this into a race issue, disregarding that the people who live in Prairie View were the ones who brought the complaint to our office. Shelia Jackson Lee got involved in the press opportunities and away we went. Nevermind that no voter was turned away, disenfranchised or otherwise prevented from voting in any way, shape or form. All Mr. Kitzman has been saying is that you must be a resident of this county to vote in this county.
I think that the latest AG (#0141)opinion does nothing to address the real problem and further promotes a misunderstanding of the law and unintentionally paves the way for even greater abuses of the election process.

By the way, this is my opinion alone, and my office is not responsible for any of the content of this posting.

Thanks,
Michael West

I do think the AG opinion does a good job of pointing out the role of the prosecutor in election fraud. It states (paraphrasing) that a prosecutor may act on credible evidence of voter fraud in a specific case. It does not say that the local prosecutor is authorized to make some generalized pronouncement regarding who can and can not vote in an election. That pronouncement is for officials who handle voter registration.

It is a good lesson in thinking about the consequences of how we make statements in public.

I say this with some experience in this particular subject. We had a local citizen complain that a lawyer in the area was voting in a city election even though he lived outside the city limits. The complainant also alleged that the lawyer was encouraging others to use their business address (located in the city limits) as their residence for registration purposes.

I asked a Texas Ranger to do an investigation. I kept my mouth shut about my opinions and waited for specific evidence to review. I then did some research and presented the case to a grand jury. In the particular case shown to the grand jury, they determined that there was no evidence of a crime.

The lawyer did have evidence that he was physically present at his office in the city. He also had evidence that he spent some nights there. And, he claimed it was his intent to make that his residence for the purpose of voting.

Like it or not, the law allows the voter's intent to carry great weight. Even if some people think it looks like a sham.

The result was that the DA's office didn't become the center of attention in the media.

P.S. But it didn't stop the lawyer from suing everyone.

Michael:

I'm sorry if you were offended by the article that was reprinted on the Issues in Prosecution section of this webpage.

In line with our continuing effort to provide our members with the most up-to-date information on important issues that may affect them, one of our staff members posted the most recent article available on this topic, which was an AP article reprinted verbatim from a local Austin TV station's website (the active weblink is underlined in blue). She did so at my request, so you may hold me responsible.

Unfortunately, our limited resources prevent us from authoring our own news articles for this webpage. Having to rely on the news media for such information can be a dicey proposition, as you point out -- in fact, upon further review of at least 4 other articles on this topic from various Texas sources, I found none of them to be fair to your office, or prosecutors in general. As mentioned in other posts on this forum, that seems to be a more and more common occurrence these days. But if there is one that you have read and think is more suitable, please forward us the link and we will replace it.

I'm not sure that we fully serve our members if we refuse to post the news of the day as promptly as possible due to concerns about the motivation of the sources. That said, we welcome any advice you might have for us on this topic so that it doesn't occur again.

Shannon Edmonds
Staff Attorney, TDCAA

TDCAA's web site exists to collect information and distribute it to prosecutors, investigators and key personnel as quickly as possible. I like the list of recent articles.

Not because I think the articles are always accurate (they rarely are). But because it provides a centralized place to get a feel for what is going on in the world of prosecution.

I also like that TDCAA posts the article without editorial comment. Those comments, quite approriately, come in this forum.

And, I think it is great that Waller County has taken the time to post a correction of the article. The information was terrific and does make the situation sound more "fishy."

But let's not confuse the message with the messenger. Postings of stories on the home page are, as far as I can recall, simply the story as it appeared in the media.

... looks like Michael's office is suffering the same fate as yours ...

Students Sue DA

This was all very interesting. What I have learned is a better understanding of the "role as prosecutor" as discussed by John. There's always the tendency to want to address every question asked, solve every problem presented, often without much preparation, especially for us "type A's."

It is my humble opinion that no federal court should have authority to tell a state prosecutor how to interpret or apply a state law against election fraud. But, then maybe the federal suit will provide a forum to see if anything fishy is occurring in Waller County. The plaintiffs may not like having to explain some the facts that apparently accompany their claim. Many witnesses that I call do not even understand the question "where do you reside?".

I certainly appreciate everyone's comments. I suppose I was just a little gunshy when I turned to TDCAA only to see the same misleading "soundbite" about my boss that graces every news media application in this area. To make matters worse, Mr. Kitzman has now also been sued in the Federal Southern District Court to prevent him from doing something he is already not doing and never has done. Apparently he is not alone. (I could not follow the link to the Dallas News since I am not a subscriber). The petition would be almost laughable if it weren't an actual Court document intended to invoke federal jurisdiction and the resultant trouble and costs of a response.
As part of their relief the plaintiffs are requesting the Court to order Mr. Kitzman, should he ever decide to prosecute a student for election fraud to make a detailed written inventory of all "tangible evidence" he might possess in the case and make it available to "all interested parties" after the charges have been filed . . . !?

By the way, I am not trying to "kill the messenger" I applaud this open forum and its administrators.

Thanks again,
Michael