This story was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Texas’ free newsletter here.Robert Howden, a senior adviser to Gov. Greg Abbott, will be Texas’ interim secretary of state, Abbott announced Friday. Howden is a longtime Texas politico who has worked for GOP governors going back to Bill Clements, serving as Abbott’s legislative director since 2024.Howden is replacing Jane Nelson, who left her post Friday as Texas’ top election official after three and a half years. Nelson’s resignation, announced in early June, set off a flurry of speculation about why she was leaving and who would replace her ahead of the contentious midterm elections in November.Howden will need to be confirmed by the Texas Senate when the Legislature returns in January, but can serve until then without legislative approval. Nelson’s three immediate predecessors in the role resigned before the Senate got a chance to approve them.“Robert Howden has served Texas with distinction in four Republican governors’ administrations,” Abbott said in a statement. “His experience in the legislative process and extensive public service have prepared him to protect the integrity of Texas elections and represent our state with strength on the global stage.”Nelson has not commented on her departure, other than to say she worked hard “to ensure that voting in Texas is secure, accessible, and fair.” Abbott praised her as an “extraordinary” secretary of state.Nelson was the longest-serving Republican woman in the Texas Senate and the first woman to lead the Senate Finance Committee. She presided over seven statewide elections and disbursed millions in grants to county election officials, according to a press release from her office.But she clashed with GOP leadership toward the end of her tenure over closing the primaries, which would require voters to register with a specific party to vote in the primary. Last year, the Texas GOP filed a lawsuit arguing that it had the legal right to close its primaries. Attorney General Ken Paxton joined the party’s suit rather than defending Texas law, a move Nelson called “brazen and misguided.”Nelson said in a filing that Paxton’s office gave her less than an hour’s notice about its plans, and said it was up to the Legislature, not the courts, to change the law. Abbott, who has joined the call for closing the primaries, agreed, telling Texas Scorecard that lawmakers “can and should be more responsive to Republicans than a judge may be.”As chief elections officer for a state whose leaders are heavily focused on election integrity and the threat of voter fraud, Howden will have more to manage than just the November elections. Nelson often faced competing demands from the Trump Justice Department, state leaders, county election officials, and voting rights groups.During her tenure, Texas was one of just 15 states that gave the U.S. Department of Justice access to its full voter roll, including identifying information about 18 million registered voters. The state also began using a federal database called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, last year to verify voters’ citizenship, prompting at least two lawsuits by voting rights groups.Nelson raised concerns about that system in an April letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Votebeat reported Wednesday.Kristin Miles, the Bastrop County elections administrator and president of the Texas Association of County Election Officials, said in a statement that Howden was assuming a position “which carries the tremendous responsibility of fostering trust in Texas’ election system.”“It will be critical for Secretary Howden to help maintain that trust through the upcoming November general election in Texas, and we stand ready to be a resource and a partner to the new secretary from day one,” Miles said.
