Mattress Mack asks Harris County voters for details on “bad” events on Election Day 2022.

Jim “Matress Mack” McIngvale, a Houston businessman and Republican political donor who questioned the credibility of Harris County’s 2022 election results, has launched an intelligence campaign looking for voters who may be having trouble voting.

At the top of the new hardtovote.com website is a 31-second audio recording of McKingwale asking voters to share their experiences if “you feel you were denied the opportunity to vote” in the Nov. 8 election. The message, which identifies itself as “a political ad paid for by Mattress Mack”, also aired on at least one Houston radio station.

The campaign follows a lawsuit filed last week by McKingvale and local media consultant Wayne Dolcefino, who sued the Harris County Board of Elections for allegedly failing to provide election-related materials requested under the Texas Public Information Act. Alexandra del Moral Miler, whose campaign for a Harris County judge was supported by McInvale both financially and through TV commercials with Gallery furniture owner, is one of nearly two dozen Republican candidates in the county who have filed lawsuits challenging their losses. In November.

“What Mattress Mack is doing is looking for litigators and experts to document the issues he claims came up in the November election so he can go to court and say, ‘Not only are we seeing evidence that polling stations are running out of paper, but people have been hurt here too,” said Rice University political science professor Bob Stein. “You must have legal capacity (in a lawsuit). You have to show that someone tried to vote and couldn’t.”

Attempts to reach McKingvale for comment on Tuesday were unsuccessful.

Republicans both locally and across Texas have criticized the way elections have been conducted in the state’s largest district, which has leaned Democratic since 2018. The Harris County Republican Party said in a Nov. 14 lawsuit against the county and election administrator Clifford Tatum that he violated the election. laws and “illegally disenfranchised tens of thousands” of registered voters, citing reports of ballot shortages, malfunctioning voting machines, and discrepancies in hours of operation at various polling stations.

Some Republican leaders have even called for Harris County to cancel the November results and hold new elections, though none of them has produced evidence of widespread voter disenfranchisement to justify such action.

Stein said he does not question McKingwale’s concerns about Election Day voting irregularities, but is “skeptical” about whether those issues were significant enough to affect the outcome of any races, including the one that Miler entered. , which received 49.2 percent of the vote and lost. incumbent Democrat Line Hidalgo by 18,183 votes. Stein said McInvale may want to protect or revive his investment in Miler, to whom he has donated at least $448,000.

Stein also said that McInvale “conveniently raises the same doubts” as then-President Donald Trump about the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden.

“I think there is a political agenda here,” Stein said. “The agenda here is to sow doubts about how we conduct elections in Harris County. I don’t know who it serves.”

University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghouse described the Hard to Vote website as “another trolling operation to gather evidence of electoral fraud that was generally minimal.” He also said that information submitted through the website, especially if done anonymously, must be verified and “very carefully crafted” to be considered reliable.

If allegations of electoral fraud are released without proper verification, Rottinghouse said, it could potentially lead to criminal charges or “damage the perception of democratic governance.” The January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol uprising was sparked, at least in part, by Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election had been stolen from him.

“There is a slippery slope here that can cause problems if these things are not handled properly,” Rottinghouse said.

The new website is asking Harris County residents to share their names and contact information, as well as details about the “failed vote,” including by uploading photos and videos. It also asks if whistleblowers will be “willing to film for any upcoming social media or commercial purposes related to your voting experience.”

“(McIngvale) seems confident that this is a widespread problem, although the evidence does not support it,” Rottinghouse said. “Of course he thought he would be a king or queen maker for a county. That did not happen”.