HISD STATEMENT:

The Houston Independent School District is aware of an error regarding the name of a District VII Board of Education candidate on the upcoming November 2, 2021, election ballot. Mr. Lee Macerlaen Walker's application was filed in the Office of Board Services on Monday, August 16, 2021, and he was notified of its acceptance via certified letter on Wednesday, August 18, 2021. Mr. Walker's legal name is Lee Walker, but he asked to be identified as Mac Walker on the ballot.

HISD acknowledges and takes responsibility for the error in inputting Mr. Walker's name into the Harris County Elections Administrator's Office Entity Portal.

As soon as we were made aware of the error, the Office of Board Services contacted our partners at Harris County, who administer HISD's elections, on Monday, October 4, 2021, to fix the mistake. Additional efforts were made to remedy the error with Harris County and the Texas Secretary of State's Office. However, it is our understanding from Harris County that the ballot cannot be corrected at this time. Mr. Walker's legal name will appear on the ballot.

Corrective actions and systems in the Office of Board Services have been put into place to ensure that this does not happen again.

HISD is legally required to publish notice of its election in a newspaper (HISD will use the Houston Chronicle), on the bulletin board the District uses for posting notices of its board meetings, and on the HISD website. This notice will indicate Mr. Walker's preferred name, Mac Walker, as well as the name Lee Walker that will appear on the ballot. Although not required, HISD is also publishing the notice of election in the following publications: Forward Times, La Voz, and Vietnam Post. Additionally, as permitted by the Election Code, HISD will mail the notice of election to registered voters in all five of the single-member districts having an election on November 2, 2021.