New County Clerk Takes Over Elections and More From a Local Legend
From Dana to Dyana
By Abe Asher, Fri., Feb. 10, 2023
Dyana Limon-Mercado's first job after graduating from Texas State University was working as a clerk in the Austin Municipal Court – an experience that she said led directly to the office she holds now.
"It was through that experience working firsthand in our jail that I saw, unfortunately, how unjust our justice system was – and that inspired me to go work in the Capitol on criminal justice reform," Limon-Mercado said. "So this position was really an opportunity to really bring all of those rich experiences that I've had together in a way that could continue to serve the community."
After winning an easy victory in both the Democratic primary and general election last year, Limon-Mercado was formally sworn in on Jan. 27 as the first newly elected Travis County Clerk since Dana DeBeauvoir won the job in 1986. A former Planned Parenthood Texas Votes executive and chair of the Travis County Democratic Party, she's taking the reins at a fraught moment – responsible for overseeing elections in a heavily Democratic county of a state with an increasingly far-right government.
"I have heard loud and clear that because of the size of our county, how quickly the population has grown, our traffic patterns, all of the changes our community has gone through in the last number of decades, really there's a call and a need for more polling locations," she said. But adding polling locations will require the county to acquire more polling machines and as much as double its elections workforce. She said the office has already started looking toward the 2024 election, when the county could cast a record-breaking number of votes.
Looming over the work to improve ballot access in Travis County, however, is a Republican-controlled state Legislature that has spent more than a decade working to restrict voter access. In the coming years, Limon-Mercado expects the Legislature will entertain pushes to move Texas back to paper-only voting, further limit the state's vote-by-mail and curbside voting programs, or even eliminate early voting entirely.
Prior to the start of the current legislative session, state legislators had prefiled more than 75 bills related to voting and elections in the state – with select Republicans pushing a bill that would let the secretary of state appoint election marshals to investigate possible violations of state election law. A number of people targeted by Florida's similar election crime unit thus far have been people of color, some of whom say they didn't know they were ineligible to vote. (Attorney General Ken Paxton was barred from investigating election fraud on his own by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.)
DeBeauvoir would like to see her successor take over voter registration, which currently resides in the Travis County Tax Office under Tax Assessor-Collector Bruce Elfant. "It's a hangover from the poll tax days when you had to pay your taxes in order to be able to qualify to vote … [the clerk's] office is poised to take it over, and I think the new clerk is interested in talking about that proposal," DeBeauvoir said.
Limon-Mercado's work in the clerk's office will not end with running elections. She said she's also interested in a thorough review of the office's fees to determine which she can eliminate outright for those with lower incomes. She also aims to complete the digitization of the county's records, making them more accessible for people who don't have the time or resources to visit the clerk's office in person.
DeBeauvoir said she believes Limon-Mercado is a natural fit to work with many of the staff members who served with her in the office. "I anticipate that they're going to get along famously," she said.
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