A local elections official lauded by top state officials — and his critics — as one of the best in the field has submitted his resignation.
Heider Garcia, who has been the elections director in Tarrant County since 2018, told county officials his last day will be June 23, not long after the May 6 general election, based on his letter of resignation.
The move comes months after a newly elected county judge took office. During his campaign more than a year ago, Tim O’Hare prioritized election integrity and frugal spending of tax dollars. Soon after he took office, he debuted a county election integrity task force, despite the lack of evidence of widespread voter fraud.
While campaigning, O’Hare went on various conservative radio shows and said “mail ballot harvesting” and “Democrats cheating” contributed to Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election in Tarrant County.
In his resignation letter, Garcia said, “When leadership respects the team’s values and shows trust, members of the team become the best versions of themselves. Judge O’Hare, my formula to administer a quality transparent election stands on respect and zero politics. Compromising on these values is not an option for me. You made it clear in your last meeting that our formula is different, thus my decision is to leave.”
Garcia declined to comment.
“It’s a shock,” said Williamson County elections administrator Chris Davis, who has known Garcia since he was appointed to his role to run elections in Tarrant in 2018. “I wish Tarrant County luck in finding somebody as professional, forward thinking, and as focused on transparency and accuracy. … This is a big loss for voters in Tarrant County because he was doing everything right.”
Tension grew publicly between Garcia and O’Hare during the past few months.
Last week, O’Hare said during a public meeting that he planned on calling a meeting to review Garcia’s performance after the May 6 municipal election.
“I want to say all things are on the table,” O’Hare told the Star-Telegram. “I know there are a lot of people that want to get rid of the machines. I’m not telling you I’m a fan of the machines, want to keep the machines. I’m telling you you can cheat in paper ballots. You can in machines. You can cheat in all sorts of things.”
During a commissioners court meeting in February, O’Hare and other Republican commissioners questioned Garcia for about 20 minutes about the purchase of a $150,000 laser paper cutter for a mail-ballot sorting machine. The county had included that purchase in the budget approved for this year, Garcia told the commissioners. O’Hare said the piece of equipment was too expensive.
“I think it’s a total waste,” O’Hare said before voting against the purchase.
Garcia, like many other elections officials across the country, has faced harassment and racist death threats stemming from lies about the outcome of the 2020 election. Many administrators in Texas and across the country have resigned. Garcia, however, stood out and became known for taking a different approach to deal with some of the boisterous voter fraud activists. Instead of dismissing them or shutting them down, Garcia engaged with them and earned their trust. This tactic was praised by local and state election officials and others across the country.
Garcia was able to take such an approach and run a successful elections department in Texas’ third-largest county — and the state’s last major urban area led by Republicans — because he had the support of his bosses: the Tarrant County commissioners. Election administrators rely heavily on those elected officials, who control the budget. Former Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, a Republican, praised Garcia’s work, said he had the “greatest confidence” in him, and denied any malfeasance in the county’s elections. Whitley did not seek reelection.
Leading into the November general election last fall, former Secretary of State John Scott said Garcia was the “prototype” of an elections administrator. Garcia’s critics, too, have given him credit, with one election-fraud activist saying he makes other election officials in the state “look like idiots.”
Garcia will “answer all of your questions,” said Aubree Campbell, a voter-fraud activist in the county who runs a group dubbed Taking Back Texas.
O’Hare has said he will call a meeting of the commissioners court soon to begin the search for Garcia’s replacement. Many Democrats and some Republicans worry that the next elections administrator will buy into the claims of nearly nonexistent voter fraud, allowing Republican leaders to cast doubt on or even discard any election outcome that doesn’t go their way.
A version of this story originally appeared in The Texas Tribune.
