Threats to the freedom and integrity of elections can come from many directions, whether they be legal maneuvers intended to toss out valid electoral votes or schemes to round up ballots and help in filling them out, as alleged in a recent Arizona case.

Then there’s the old and real problem of improper influence and even coercion in voting. From an investigation by San Antonio’s KSAT:

Employees at multiple Northside Independent School District campuses have told the KSAT 12 Defenders in recent weeks that administrators relentlessly pressured them to vote on a May bond measure, tracked whether they had cast a ballot and in one instance threatened discipline if they failed to do so.…

The [$900 million] bond passed during the May 7 election after garnering more than 57 percent support of voters within the district who cast a ballot.…

Earlier, on May 7, Cato education adjunct scholar Corey DeAngelis had called public attention to the documents. Among them was this communication from one school principal:

“Thank you for supporting the NISD Bond 2022. As per Dr. Woods, all employees will be expected to vote for this year’s Bond,” the message reads.

“Only 7 percent of NISD employees voted during our last NISD Bond and according to our Superintendent, Dr. Woods ‘this is unacceptable.’ Especially, because 70 percent of NISD employees live in NISD. We should all be doing our part to vote and to be advocating for our NISD students. Central Office will be monitoring campus percentages for employee voting stats in the next weeks to come and will be expecting ALL employees to vote.”

More on the monitoring of employee voting participation from a second email:

“A list was provided to me today of all eligible employees who have completed early voting so far. As of today, 7 out of 49 employees have voted from our campus. Please take a moment to vote this week, it’s a very quick and painless process. An updated list will be provided to me again next week and I’m hopeful our numbers increase.”

School bond issuances are a good example of a high-stakes question often decided at the polls amid very low voter turnout — the kind of situation in which the support of a single concentrated voter bloc is especially apt to make a difference. According to one 2014 account, low turnout in Texas school bond elections might be more than just a regrettable effect of public apathy: Jess Fields writes that localities and school districts regularly manage the timing, location and outreach of these elections in ways that discourage voter participation. 

As for the Northside episode, a government agency’s coercion of its own employees’ voting choices is fundamentally at odds with the principles of democratic elections. Texas authorities are promising an investigation to see whether any laws were broken, as well they might. To quote KSAT, “The Texas Election Code allows public school employees to disseminate information about a specific measure being voted on, as long as “the communication does not advocate passage or defeat of the measure.”