Controversy surrounds Houston Community College Board of Trustees seat

HOUSTON – There's controversy surrounding a Houston Community College position and how the person who's sitting in the seat won it. While some would say David Wilson's campaign strategy was clever, others say it was deceitful.

The battle over a Houston Community College seat is far from over. An African-American incumbent who lost to a white conservative says the voters were deceived and he will ask for a recount.

"I wanted to focus on the issues. I kept race out of it and kept my picture out of it," David Wilson said.

Wilson admits he used a unique campaign strategy to win a seat on the HCC Board of Trustees. He never revealed in campaign brochures that as a white Republican he was running to defeat a long-time African-American incumbent.

"Basically the people of that district are African-American and I appealed to the people of the district by using advertisement that appealed to the people of that district," Wilson said.

In the final count on Election Day, 26 votes separated Wilson from incumbent and HCC Board Chairman Bruce Austin.

"My plans are to file the appropriate documentation to ask for a recount. I owe that to the people I serve," said Austin.

He insists that his primary concern is education. He says Wilson deceived voters and plans to push a conservative agenda that works against the people who live in the district.

"He was not transparent, he was not honest with the people who are in the community and that really perpetrated a fraud on the community," Austin said.

Wilson told us, "There's not been one voter that's come up to me and said they were deceived. In fact I've had many voters come up to me and said they knew what color I was and I ran on the issues."

The controversial election outcome has been making television and newspaper headlines across the country. Wilson says he not worried about the attention, but that it's making a laughingstock out of the voters.

"The people of my district they're pretty much saying their not smart -- I don't believe that -- and been fooled. I don't believe that," said Wilson.

The votes will be canvassed next week and that's when Austin will ask for the recount, which Wilson calls a waste of time and resources.

Austin told Local 2 he will abide by the outcome and the law if he does not prevail in the recount.