Democrats protest and file charges against Collin County election judge

by Bill Baumbach of The Collin County Observer

This last Monday, the Collin County Commissioners Court was scheduled to approve the appointments of election judges for the November 3 election day polling places, for the early voting locations and the ballot board.

Early voting judges are chosen by the elections administrator, while election day judges are chosen by the respective political parties. The law requires that the commissioners court ratify the appointments. Ratification is generally a consent item on the court's agenda, rarely needing discussion.

This year was different.

Shawn Stevens, the chair of the Democratic Party of Collin County; Deborah Angell Smith, the past Democratic Party Chair; and two Democratic poll watchers from the 2008 election appeared before the court to protest the appointment of James Middleton as both judge of the Spring Creek Collin College Campus polling place and as judge of early voting at the same campus.

Middleton was the election judge at the Spring Creek Campus in the 2008 election. Last year, The Collin County Observer wrote of some of the issues that poll watchers had with Mr. Middleton, who would not permit the poll watchers the freedom, guaranteed by law, to freely observe the operation of the polling place. When the poll watchers objected, Middleton called the police to have them removed.

I reported then that, "I spoke to some of the watchers and the judge involved in the Spring Creek incident. One of the watchers said that the judge was intimidating the watchers, wagging his finger at them and threatening to call the police if they entered the election clerks work area. Another stated the judge demanded that she "sit in that chair and not move." The watcher was told that she could not talk to the clerks and that she would have submit her questions to the judge in writing. When shown a copy of the election code, the watcher reported that the judge said he didn't care about the code, that he'd been a judge for many years and knew what he was doing. At least one of the poll watchers indicated to me that he was contemplating filing a criminal complaint of "obstructing a watcher" over these incidents."

Even more troubling was one poll watcher's observation that, "They [the elections clerks] were really going after the black students" who were trying to vote.

Democratic Party officials complained to the elections department and believed that they had Sharon Rowe's (the elections administrator) promise that Middleton would not be reappointed as an election judge. That was not the case.

In his testimony before the court Monday, Stevens told the commissioners that, "there had been issues with Mr. Middleton since 2004." Stevens told the court that he was a personal witness to Middleton's violations of the election law by disallowing three poll watchers from seeing the activities of election workers.

"When it [the election law] was brought to his [Middleton's] attention, he became somewhat belligerent and territorial and called the campus police," Stevens said. After describing similar problems in 2004, Stevens noted that, "it's an ongoing thing with him, he can't follow the law."

Stevens testified that he did not pursue criminal prosecution because he was assured that night that Middleton "would not be serving again as an election official."

Deborah Hyatt, one of the 2008 poll watchers, told the commissioners that as soon as she showed up at the polls, Middleton told her that, "he didn't want her there" and that she "should sit over there and not move or talk to any of the election clerks." When she attempted to show him the election code, he told her that "he had seen that before, and it didn't mean anything to him."

Hyatt also told the court that at one point Middleton's son, who was an election clerk, "leaped up out of his chair, got in my face, way beyond what would be considered proper, and kept asking me, 'have you got a problem'."

Linda Magid, another 2008 poll watcher, told the court that when she showed up, Middleton told her to stand in a place were she couldn't see and told her that if she moved he would call the police.

Deborah Angell Smith said the location where Middleton was serving as judge was turning away a large number of people, predominately "people of color." When a poll watcher was sent to monitor the situation, Middleton at first refused to admit them, then he assigned them to sit in a chair and not move.

Sharon Rowe testified that Middleton was qualified and that she didn't have the authority to remove an election judge from the list proposed by the political parties. She said she was concerned that removing a judge for one violation might have a chilling effect on recruiting future election judges. Later in her testimony she admitted that he was not on the list to be appointed, but was recruited by the elections department because there was a vacancy.

After some discussion by the court, the commissioners voted 3-1 to approve the appointments. Commissioner Shaheen was the sole vote against; he said that he had reservations on approving someone who was trained twice on the law and still had problems.

After the court session, Stevens, Hyatt, and Magid went to the district attorney's office filed criminal complaints against Middleton.

Later in the afternoon, Sharon Rowe sent an email to both the Republican and Democratic county chairs:

I hasten to add that election judges and clerks are citizen volunteers who could never be paid enough for the service they render to the voting public. Almost all of them are fair and try their very best to be friendly, diligent, and even-handed.

I have been an election judge and will be this November. Having experienced first hand the difficulties in setting up and running a polling place for what is usually a 14 hour day, I have nothing but admiration and respect for all the fine citizens who volunteer to make our election process work. The actions of one rogue judge should not place a shadow on the great work done by hundreds of dedicated election volunteers each year.

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