Stanart campaigning to regain Harris County Clerk's office and election duties

The election for the person who does not handle elections in Harris County is all about elections – something Teneshia Hudspeth and Stan Stanart know all too well. Hudspeth, the current Harris County clerk, and Stanart, her former boss who was in office from 2010 to 2018, each spent years helping run county elections. Stanart, a software engineer by trade, and Hudspeth, who worked in outreach and communications, bring varied expertise to the topic. They have spent long overnight hours coordinating information as ballots rolled in. They have done the grunt work to get results out on a Tuesday night – or a Wednesday morning depending on the election and the lack of a timely count. Yet, the county clerk has little to do with elections anymore, after Commissioners Court opted in July 2020 to switch to an elections administrator-led system.

Now, all the clerk does is sit on the election commission that chooses the administrator – along with Republican and Democratic party leaders, the county tax assessor-collector and county judge. For Stanart, his and Hudspeth's re-match of the 2020 special election, is about reversing that and giving election responsibility back to the clerk. The 66-year-old Republican said he immediately would take those duties back if the elections administrator job was abolished, as other GOP candidates have pledged to do. “I do think the voters are waking up to the need for a change back,” Stanart said. Hudspeth, 41, a Democrat, is fine with the status quo and happy to help residents connect with the clerk’s office for what it does rather than what it does not. “How government works is important, and how it is perceived is important,” Hudspeth said, noting the need to modernize offerings so people can more conveniently get access to public records.