Both County Clerk candidates J.J. Clemence and Tamara McFarlane have purchased campaign advertising on CoveringKaty.com at the same rate, with ads running in identical locations on the website for the same duration. Advertising with us doesn't shield candidates from scrutiny.
RICHMOND, Texas (Covering Katy News) — A Fort Bend County Elections Commission member is directly contradicting a claim by Republican primary candidate Tamara McFarlane that she was offered the position of Fort Bend County Elections Administrator.
McFarlane, who is seeking the Fort Bend County Clerk nomination in the March Republican primary, made the claim in a comment posted on the Facebook page of The Chris Heasley Show Presented by Mike Khan, a local video podcast.
"I was offered the Election Administrator role and I proposed my election integrity colleague since I did not want to have a CCP affiliate as the Republican nominee," McFarlane wrote. McFarlane did not respond to a request from Covering Katy News for an explanation of her claim.
Tamara McFarlane's untruthful claim that she was offered the job of Fort Bend County Elections Administrator.
Commission Member: McFarlane Was Never Considered
Bobby Eberle, chairman of the Fort Bend County Republican Party and a member of the Fort Bend County Elections Commission, told Covering Katy News in an exclusive interview that McFarlane's claim is false.
"She was never offered the job. In fact, she was never even considered," Eberle said. "Chase (Wilson) was the only one who was considered. For me, Chase was the only logical choice."
Eberle acknowledged that supporters of both Wilson and McFarlane lobbied for their preferred candidates prior to the vote, but said the commission put so little stock in McFarlane that she was never seriously considered. Wilson was the only candidate they voted on. A separate source told Covering Katy News that McFarlane never submitted a resume, a basic step to be considered for the position.
Unanimous Vote Left McFarlane on the Sidelines
The Fort Bend County Elections Commission voted unanimously in December to appoint Chase Wilson as Fort Bend County Elections Administrator, effective Jan. 1, 2026. Wilson, who had served as assistant election administrator since 2022, replaced John Oldham, who retired Dec. 31, 2025.
The commission is composed of Fort Bend County Judge KP George (R), Fort Bend County Tax Assessor-Collector Carmen Turner (D), Fort Bend County Clerk Laura Richard (R), Eberle, and Jennifer Cantu, chairwoman of the Fort Bend County Democratic Party.
"I think that the Fort Bend County Election Commission has made a wise decision in appointing Chase Wilson as the next Fort Bend County Elections Administrator," Oldham said at the time of the appointment. "Chase has served eight years in the department, the last four as assistant administrator. He is clearly ready for the job and I firmly believe he is the best choice to provide continuity for the department as we enter a busy election year in 2026."
Podcast Pushes False Claims Against Clemence
McFarlane posted her comment on the Facebook page of "The Chris Heasley Show Presented by Mike Khan," a local video podcast. Heasley's show is produced at a facility owned by Khan who has been soundly defeated in previous Republican primary runs for Precinct 3 Commissioner and State Representative.
The Heasley show has been a platform for a series of false claims targeting McFarlane's opponent, JJ Clemence. Earlier this month, Heasley featured a guest identified as Solomon Yue, billed as a "CCP hunter" and Republican National Committee official, who recently falsely accused a Hispanic Fort Bend County employee in the office of County Judge KP George of being a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party operative who reported directly to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The man was sitting next to Clemence in the photo. The man is Hispanic and a longtime Fort Bend County resident, not Chinese. Covering Katy News is withholding his name to protect him from potential retaliation. Read more here.
Yue based his accusation on a photo taken during a Chinese delegation's visit to Fort Bend County. He claimed the employee was part of that delegation and had been seated next to Clemence as part of a spying operation. When Heasley asked Yue what Clemence's Chinese name was, Yue did not know, undermining his own credibility as an expert witness.
After Covering Katy News contacted Heasley and informed him that his guest had provided false information, the podcast video claims were removed. Heasley declined to comment and did not respond to a request for a written statement. Hours later, Yue sent a mass text to Republican primary voters openly campaigning for McFarlane — dropping any pretense of being an unbiased expert. McFarlane amplified the false claims on her own social media, calling Clemence "a CCP operative" and accusing her of "using Marxist strategies to spark racial tensions."
Solomon Yue
Solomon Yue began openly campaigning for Tamara McFarlane after Covering Katy outed him for making untruthful statements about a county employee.
Heasley has continued to push the conspiracy theory even after being informed his guest was wrong, but has shifted to more carefully worded insinuations rather than direct accusations. While he may believe that strategy will keep him out of legal trouble, the body of his work has been to promote unproven conspiracies against Clemence.
A Lie Designed to Hide a Bigger Story
The timing of McFarlane's post about the elections administrator job raises serious questions. Throughout the campaign, McFarlane has portrayed Clemence as a threat to national security, repeatedly accusing her of being a Chinese Communist operative. But Covering Katy News has learned that McFarlane's supporters were privately promising that she would to drop out of the race against Clemence if she was appointed Fort Bend County Elections Administrator. In other words, McFarlane was willing to walk away from the race and hand Clemence the Republican nomination without opposition — the same Clemence she has spent months calling a danger to the country. Her post on the Heasley Facebook page made no mention of that promise. Instead, she portrayed her willingness to step aside as a selfless act, casting herself as someone who put election integrity above personal ambition. What she left out tells a different story entirely.
The Real Prize: Control of Fort Bend's Elections?
A possible answer to why McFarlane was so willing to abandon her campaign lies in the priorities of the Katy Republican Women's Club, which has been a driving force behind her candidacy. The club has pushed to eliminate electronic voting machines, claiming they are used to steal elections. But people who are involved in the process in Fort Bend say the opposite is true — removing voting machines and relying solely on paper ballots actually makes cheating easier, not harder. The machines Fort Bend uses produce a paper ballot that voters can review after casting their vote, and one of the key safeguards in modern elections is the ability to compare those paper ballots against machine totals. Eliminate the machines and you eliminate that check, making fraud significantly more difficult to detect, they say. Critics say the real beneficiary of that scenario would be whoever controls the paper — in this case, the Fort Bend County elections administrator, a role that McFarlane's supporters aggressively pushed for her to have.
One commission member previously told Covering Katy News that the lobbying effort to get McFarlane into the position of elections administrator "made a lot of people feel very uncomfortable."
A Campaign Built on Questionable Claims
The elections administrator claim is not the first time questions have been raised about McFarlane's statements or campaign conduct. McFarlane has repeatedly touted an endorsement from state Rep. Steve Toth, but Toth has not confirmed the endorsement, and Covering Katy News obtained a text message in which he denied endorsing her. McFarlane continues to promote the claimed endorsement on her social media. Read more here.
McFarlane's campaign has also been linked to the circulation of an altered photo that appears to show her opponent, JJ Clemence, voluntarily standing in front of a Chinese Communist flag. The photo also darkened her skin. Read more here.
Restoration News
Retoration News altered a photo of J.J. Clemence making it appear she willing posed for a photo in front of the Chinese Communist Flag. Her skin tone was also darkened. The photo was published on Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2026.
Questions About McFarlane's Republican Credentials
Questions have also been raised about McFarlane's Republican credentials. Despite seeking the Republican nomination for county clerk, McFarlane has never voted in a Republican March primary. Her only participation in a GOP primary election was a single runoff, which came at a time when members of her Katy Republican Women's Club were on the ballot.
Her first campaign treasurer, former Katy ISD school board president Victor Perez, resigned from the campaign, citing negativity and divisiveness. Read more here.
Multiple witnesses have also described a profanity-laced outburst by McFarlane in the parking lot of a business where a Republican event was held. In that case Daniel Wong is said to have been placed in a car and rushed from the scene by his advisors as McFarlane and another woman began heading in their direction.
McFarlane faces JJ Clemence in the March Republican primary for Fort Bend County Clerk.