COLDSPRING — A dispute over election judges brought up two weeks ago was resolved after the San Jacinto County Commissioners Court approved an amended list.
At the Wednesday meeting, the court went through names from the previously approved list and a list provided by the Democrat Party, and approved all judges, name by name and party by party, for election judges and alternate judges.
At the meeting, County Judge Fritz Faulkner said election judges are determined by the respective party chairs. Those lists are submitted to the Elections Administrator, and the party whose candidate won the last gubernatorial race nominates the primary judges, while the other party nominates the alternate judges.
At the Aug. 4 meeting, Democrat Party Chair Benita Malone made the claim that Elections Administrator Cheri Walker ignored election law regarding the selection of judges and that the Commissioners Court approved that list in error.
Walker said there was a clerical error as two Democrat nominees were inadvertently listed as primary judges.
However, the Democrat representatives claim that the policy normally followed for installing judges was not followed and they were left out of any discussions.
In the end, Faulkner went through the lists to solve the issue.
In a separate matter, the county approved the tax rate of .46511, or 46.5 cents per $100 property valuation, for the coming fiscal year, down from .48291 from last year.
In other business, the county:
