J. Shane Howard was the first Republican county-wide elected official in Jefferson County in over a century. Howard was elected as the Tax Assessor Collector for Jefferson County.
This put a target on his back. Democrats are losing ground all across Texas. Counties that used to be Democrat strongholds are flipping over to the Republican side faster that Democrats could have ever imagined. Old Conservative Democrat Texans have woken up to the realization that the Democrat Party has become very liberal and are jumping ship to switch over to the Republican Party.
Jefferson County is a county that the Democrats do not want to lose. The put up Thomas Sigee to run against Shane Howard. They tried hard to beat Shane Howard in the November 2012 election but they came short. Even after a recount, Sigee still lost. Sigee feels as though he should have won the election and has filed a lawsuit asking a judge to declare him the winner over Howard. Sigee claims that the election was basically rigged for Howard. This is such a silly argument because the county is run by HIS DEMOCRAT PARTY. The County Clerk who runs the elections is a Democrat and the recount committee was 50% Democrats.
Billy Oliver, the Chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party, has released the following statement detailing how Sigee and the Democratic Party are trying to steal this election from Republican Shane Howard.
Press Release from Billy Oliver, Chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party in Texas Regarding Sigee/Howard Election Lawsuit:
Anatomy of an Election Theft
A frivolous lawsuit was recently filed in secrecy by Thomas Sigee seeking to overturn the election which was won by Jefferson County Tax Assessor-Collector J. Shane Howard. Sigee asks the Court to award him the election or order a new election at taxpayer expense. The petition uses a "shotgun" approach to irresponsibly and inaccurately claim that certain provisional votes should be counted and also that some voters should be disenfranchised in a hope of adding votes to Sigee and subtracting votes from Howard.
Sigee asserts that the County Clerk (a member of his own party) and the Early Voting Ballot Board (half of which were members of his own party and some of his closest political allies) were incompetent or dishonest in the conduct of their professional duties. This is part of a long-standing pattern with Sigee's obsession for political office and a wanton tendency to blame others for his own inability to garner sufficient votes or comply with the intent or form of the Texas Election Code.
Yet, other than his own willingness to participate in this travesty, Sigee is not even the driving force of this bald effort to create chaos, uncertainty, and confusion where none exists. Instead, it is an effort by entrenched, big-money special interests to gain power at any cost, send a message to Democratic voters who dared to vote for a Republican, and to signal to potential party-switchers and future candidates that their efforts are futile. Indeed, this effort is funded by these interests to remove Howard from public office more than it is an effort to support Sigee, a candidate who could garner no more than 10% of the vote from actual individual votes. This lawsuit is unprecedented at this level and will cost 5-6 times more than Sigee raised for his campaign and he will not be responsible for paying for his attorney out of Austin. $50,000 for a big-name attorney out of Austin. Why? What is there to gain? What is there to lose? Who is paying for this?
Background
On November 6, 2012, J. Shane Howard won reelection as the Jefferson County Tax Assessor-Collector by a margin of 23 votes. On November 14 the election was certified after the counting of about 596 provisional and military ballots and
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