Friday, August 10, 2012

Democrats line up against Harris elections administrator

On the 'devil you know' theory. All these come from Whitmarsh's list.

Stan Merriman was first out of the gate yesterday afternoon.

Are our memories that short ?  We've had "expert" election administrators before., working under our County Clerk.   I won't name names unless you insist, but in the late 90's we had a guy alleged to be an expert who led our then County Clerk and both Dem and Repug county chairs down the primrose path to the Hart machines, without any paper trail and we've been stuck with them ever since, now with new "replacements" of this outdated, non-recount technology after the fire. Most of the rest of America has moved to other, more transparent technology with recount capability at least.  Later, when this administrator left to ultimately become an election association lobbyist, we brilliantly hired a guy fresh from the Broward County, Florida recount fiasco of 2000. He continued the advocacy for our black box voting technology and then moved on.  he moved on I think also to become a lobbyist.    So, our track record on these "experts" isn't so good, is it. At least having this position under an elected official gives  we the people the option to remove all incompetents from office. Including the "experts" who screw up.

Gerry Birnberg picked up an echo from John Behrman (who posts occasionally here).

I share Gerry’s reservations about an elections administrator: It is something we could come to regret a lot. But, that is not what Lane Lewis called for.

The Chairman’s position is much more astute, to the point, and practical. The phrase “forensic audit” reported in the Chronicle is not a felicitous phrase: a “forensic examination”, “election audit,” or “IT audit” are things needed at various times, but not the same thing. 

Behrman continued a bit more in high praise of Chairman Lewis. David Patronella fell in behind Merriman.

Stan is absolutely right. An appointed elections administrator is not the answer. In the 1980s Dallas County became the first county to get an appointed elections administrator. She in short time gained notoriety for short changing Democratic strongholds at election time. Officially nonpartisan, she owed her position not to the voters of Dallas County but to Republican officeholders and acted in their interesest. Minority and other Democratic legislators introduced several pieces of legislation to curtail her power some of which were enacted. I would hate to see us go down this path notwithstanding serious concerns with recent serious election problems in our county.

I just left all the typographical errors, sentence fragments, comma splicing, inappropriate capitalization and munged paragraphs in those excerpts because otherwise I would have had to type [sic] about a hundred times.

Several of these men have advanced degrees from institutions more noteworthy than Lamar University, so I suppose we can chalk some of it up to failing eyesight.

Meh. Anybody can make a mistake. Even me.

But nothing anybody has written yet -- not even Charles' skepticism -- convinces me I am wrong about the need for an appointed elections administrator for Harris County, and fast. As in an observatory capacity for November, and a supervisory one after January.

I wonder if Marc Campos is still with me? Guess we'll find out later this morning. I'll update here when he weighs in. In the meantime, let's allow Pokey Anderson to remind us what's at the root of the problem: "the electrons running Harris County elections".

At the risk of harping on something I've (cough cough) researched for years....


Harris County elections are run on non-transparent, all-electronic machines, driven by software that is by its nature non-transparent. Even software in use for years has bugs in it (constant Microsoft updates, anyone?), some important, some not. Software can be changed, by officials, by insiders, by hackers.


Are intrusions into critical computers difficult? Are they rare? 
1) In one year, the Pentagon logged more than 79,000 attempted intrusions; about 1,300 were successful, including the penetration of computers linked to the Army’s 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions and the 4th Infantry Division. (2005)

2) "A government consultant, using computer programs easily found on the Internet, managed to crack the FBI's classified computer system and gain the passwords of 38,000 employees, including that of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III." (2004, reported by the Washington Post)

3) Secret Service operating procedures, 100,000 Social Security numbers, and other "highly sensitive" national security information have gone missing from the National Archives. (2009, reported by Computer World).

4) A computer hacker got into the U.S. agency that guards the country's nuclear weapons stockpile and stole the personal records of at least 1,500 employees and contractors, a senior U.S. lawmaker said. (Reported by Reuters, 2006)

When you combine inherently non-transparent electronic machinery, subject to flaws or fraud, with how much money and power is at stake in an election, you are gambling your democracy.
Certainly, some election chiefs are better than others. But, after a certain basic level of competency, whether you have Mother Teresa or Jeff Skilling running your elections should NOT matter.


Then-County Clerk Beverly Kaufman's PR flack, David Beirne, told a meeting of League of Women Voters that they should not expect transparency in elections.
"They're faith-based elections," he sniffed.
No. It's not about faith. Elections are about transparency.


In 2003, I asked Beirne about the software, the guts of this stuff:
 "No one in our office has the expertise and background to be looking at the source code, the programming for the eSlate system. "
As for an audit trail, watch his language here:
"Right now what we do in the State of Texas and what's considered to be adequate in the state of Texas is that right now we can manufacture an audit trail any time after an election if it's necessary to do a manual recount. "
Manufacture?

(In 2007, Beirne stopped working for the public and accepted a job working for the electronic voting machine organization, Election Technology Council. But, one could argue whether he ever was working for the public.)


The public should be able to tell if elections are being run fairly and accurately, by observing every step of the process. When it happens in a dark box, the public has no way to know. What if your bank told you your account had $50,000 at 10 pm, but only $30,000 the next morning, and you had made no transactions?


If the top election official "explains" losing 800 votes by blaming it on "garbage" phone lines, the public should be able to verify, without doubt, what the actual vote counts are.
You can't do it with the eSlate. Period.

Pokey nails it, and for their part Merriman (including above as well as in an op-ed in the Chronicle some years ago), Behrman (in continuing and official capacity), and I have all studied and written about this issue extensively ourselves.

I was on the conference call with Common Cause and Verified Voting yesterday which had as its topic election machine integrity; read the reports here and here. And be reminded that we all agree on at least this much: that neither partisan elected officials nor election officials appointed by partisans can really address the dilemmas we face in Harris County, Texas, and the nation.

But hey, an elections administrator is a beginning toward improving accountability. One I think we need. As with most of my political endeavors, I'm not concerned about being the minority view.

Update: Then again, maybe the County Clerk's office can just call their PR consultant, Hector Carreno, who also consults the Election Technology Council, and get this all *ahem* "papered" over.

Isn't it simply amazing how Carreno's fat fingers are in every single pie in the county?

Wednesday, August 08, 2012

The stooges running elections in Harris County *update*

John has been on this since I've been busy offline, and this week HCDP chair Lane Lewis put out the call for a forensic audit of the Harris County elections process in the wake of the recent buffoonery.

Harris County and political leaders Tuesday called for an audit and reforms to improve public confidence in local elections in the wake of problems in last week's primary runoffs that included contests run on the wrong boundaries, delayed results and inaccurate tallies posted online.

Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart said he will ask the Texas Secretary of State's Office to examine his office's election processes after a "human error" in his office caused erroneous primary runoff election results to be posted online for hours last Tuesday. The error made the Democratic runoff for Precinct 2 constable appear to be a blowout for one candidate when, in fact, the correct count had his opponent ahead.

Democratic Party chairman Lane Lewis also called for an audit of election procedures. Lewis referenced delays in the posting of results in May and July, and a Democratic primary race for the Harris County Department of Education run on outdated boundaries. County tax assessor-collector Don Sumners has accepted some blame for the error but says the Department of Education was required to notify him of the change; the department disagrees.

As Charles has documented, County Judge Ed Emmett is mumbling and shuffling his feet and not actually showing any management skills, as usual.

(Emmett) revived his proposal that an elections administrator, an appointed official outside the clerk's office and tax office, be considered. Emmett said 85 Texas counties, including most large ones, use the system.

"I'm not saying we need to go to what they do, but if there are improvements we can make, I think we ought to consider making those improvements," Emmett said. "If there is an error, then at least you have somebody who is a professional election administrator. Nobody reads into it that this is an elected person that's partisan one way or the other."

This is as lame as his leadership on the "rusting ship in the parking lot" that is the Houston Astrodome. If it weren't for so many other incompetents among the county's Republicans, Emmett's worthlessness might draw some scrutiny.

Fortunately for him, there are bigger fuckups of the elected variety spread around town. Thanks, TeaBaggers!

Regarding Stan Stanart, he simply does not need to be by himself anywhere near any more elections. There need to be multiple observers from both parties -- perhaps even Greens and Libertarians as well, maybe even the DOJ -- present in the county ballot cave on Election Night in November.

A non-partisan appointed elections administrator is officially and badly needed NOW in the nation's third-most populous county. At the very least, Commissioners Court should appoint someone without reproach to the position at once to observe Stanart as well as Sumner's activities during the voter registration process, and that person should assume the office and the control of all Harris County elections in January, 2013.

If the King Street Patriots were serious about vote "fraud", they would give up their vile suppression tactics and just concentrate on watching everything Stanart and his clown sidekick Sumners are doing for the next 90 days. But as a district court has ruled, they are ribald partisan flacks themselves.

Those are actually the three greatest threats to an honest election in this county in 2012: KSP, Sumners, and Stanart. Don't expect any Republican to take any serious ethical action against any of them. They all love their power more than they do honesty and transparency in government.

Update: Campos wants to know...

I wonder why local Dem Party leaders won’t come out and support an Election Administrator?

And via Carl W, former HCDP chair Gerry Birnberg tries to set us both -- mostly me -- straight.

The Elections Administrator idea falls into the "better watch out what you ask for, you just might get it" category.. Perry apparently doesn't realize who appoints an Elections Administrator: under Texas law, the Elections Administrator is appointed by a fiver person committee consisting of (1) the County Clerk (yep - Stan Stanart), (2) the County Tax Assessor-Collector/Voter Registrar (currently Tea Party crazy Don Sumner, but after Januayr [sic] 1, hopefuly Ann Bennett, and if not her, then Mike Sullivan), (3) the County Judge (Ed Emmett), (4) the Chair of the Harris County Republican Party (Jarrod [sic] Woodfill), and (5) the Chair of the Harris County Democratic Party (Lane Lewis). Even if you could somehow hop [sic] that Ed Emmett would vote for a reasonable, competent, not-partisan Elections Administrator, do you think Jarrod [sic] Woodfill, Stan Stanart, and Don Sumner would?

And once you appoint an Election Administrator, that person cannot be replaced -- even for cause, unless four of the members of that committee vote to remove him or her. So, as a practical matters, once appointed, it's essentially a lifetime appointment. (Commissioners Court can abolish the position by majority vote, but they cannot fire the Administrator and obtain a replacement).

So until Democrats win at least one of the countywide elected spots on the committee (voter registrar, count clerk, or county judge) and really, two of them, it could be electoral suicide to put the entire elections apparatus (voter registration and elections administration) in the hands of one un-elected, permanent, un-replaceable person selected by Don Sumner, Stan Stanart, and Jarrod Woodfill (to say nothing of Ed Emmett).

The best way to clean up the mess is to elect Ann Bennett voter registrar in November and some other Democrat as county clerk and/or county judge in 2014.

Gerry gets it a little right and a little wrong here.

He's right that I didn't know it was those five who appointed an elections administrator, and wrong that it wouldn't be an improvement. ANYTHING and anybody would be better than leaving things they way they are... until hopefully Harris County voters elect another Democrat in November AND in an off-presidential year two years hence, when Democrats traditionally avoid the polls.

A little too much hope meeting cold hard reality there for me, Gerr.

Way back when Beverly Kaufman retired, she also tried to hand-pick her successor, and I criticized that. Kevin Mauzy looks like a whiz-bang stinkin' genius at this point of course, and might be the perfect fit. Certainly seems competent; might even be from the moderately sane wing of the GOP (since Stanart whipped him in 2010's primary). This would be a fat slice of humble pie for Stanart to eat, that's for sure.

Today's little effort to appear moderate myself, not to mention bipartisan, hopefully won't go overlooked.

Did Gerry answer your question, Marc?

Update: Charles Kuffner has deeper background (but no secrets).

Monday, August 06, 2012

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance was up early this morning to watch Curiosity stick its landing on Mars, and salutes NASA for its outstanding job as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff rounded up the Republican and Democratic primary runoff results.  

BossKitty at TruthHugger was on a roll this week. Always disgusted at the deliberate distractions from urgent issues by political campaigns, the contempt red-lined in Candidate State of Denial: Why Can't They Buy Rain?, and Bitter Governors Screw 6 Million People out of health insurance. BossKitty also mourns the passing of a past co-worker named Sally Ride.

Local property tax elections are the result of state leaders shirking their duty and passing the buck to local ISD's. WCNews at Eye on Williamson posts that the plan to defund public education continues.

Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart choked again last Tuesday night trying to count election results, and PDiddie at Brains and Eggs doesn't believe any excuse the man makes at this point.  

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants everyone to know that Henry Cuellar is a rat.

Over at TexasKaos, lightseeker rags on about Poisonous Hypocrisy and Those Who Practice It. Rick Perry and Reagan and Palin have more in common than people know.

Neil at Texas Liberal posted that the very first historical marker at the San Jacinto Battlefield Park just outside Houston -- where Texas Independence was won -- notes the gift of cannons from the people of Cincinnati. Full self-reliance is a myth... most especially in Texas.

Sunday, August 05, 2012

Friday, August 03, 2012

City attorney Feldman, Mayor Parker want closed council meetings

The mayor and city attorney are floating the idea of shutting the public out of some City Council discussions.

Houston is unusual, perhaps even unique, among Texas cities in requiring that its council always meet in public.

On Thursday, City Attorney David Feldman unveiled a proposal to authorize closed-session discussions of hirings and firings, lawsuits, real estate transactions and other matters allowed by the Texas Open Meetings Act.

Because the idea would require a change to a 70-year-old provision in the city charter, it would need voter approval. Mayor Annise Parker is considering asking the council next week to place it on the November ballot. 

The political tone-deafness of our mayor no longer surprises me. That Feldman is obviously a big fan of George Orwell does.

"Contrary to what some might say, and that is that this is a move away from transparency, I believe that just the opposite is true," Feldman told members of the Council Committee on Ethics, Elections and Council Governance. "We are oftentimes -- this administration, any administration of this city -- accused of bringing matters to council as a fait accompli. The primary reason that that's the case is that we can't have an executive session like everybody else in the state of Texas to discuss these things before they're placed on the agenda for action." 

He simply doesn't get how stupid that sounds, and Mayor Parker, finger cautiously in the wind, chose to send Feldman out to the gun range for target practice. As the target.

The mayor has no formal position, but through Feldman presented the proposal to get feedback before deciding whether to place it on next week's council agenda, spokeswoman Janice Evans said.

A few council members are tactfully attempting to explain it to them. Well, maybe not so tactfully.

"I think our system works fine, and I've seen it work fine. I believe that we'll lose a lot of good will in the community if we move to try to put this on the ballot," (CM James) Rodriguez said. "I believe in transparency. I believe that we need to hash out our issues in the public and work with the public and to have their confidence and trust that we're going to be open and upfront with issues."

CM Costello clarifies, at least from an electoral point of view.

The mayor already has proposed five ballot propositions that would ask voters to approve $410 million in borrowing for parks, public safety, libraries, affordable housing and other purposes.

Councilman Stephen Costello said he supports the closed-session option, but now is not the time to put it before voters.

"You incite an emotion that you really don't want the voters to have as they walk into the ballot box," Costello said. "What we want is voters going in and approving our bond issue, and I'd rather just have the bond issue there up for a vote, or, if we're going to make some charter amendments, make them noncontroversial." 

Costello gets it. I would hope that every single Democrat on the ballot in Harris County would call the mayor's office and suggest that she not torpedo their November prospects by waving any more red flags in front of TeaBaggers.They have too much animosity in their blood stream as it is.

If you favor this, Mayor Parker, then revisit it in 2013 -- an election year when YOU will be on the ballot -- so that voters can hold you accountable for it. That would be the politically courageous thing to do.

Which, thankfully, is why it won't happen.

Update (8-6-12): *BOOM* ... *thud*

The mayor apparently will not seek voter approval of a proposition that would have allowed Council to go into closed session to discuss real estate transactions, litigation and personnel matters. Council will, therefore, continue to follow city law that requires that all portions of its meetings be open to the public.

City Attorney David Feldman presented a proposed ballot measure to a council committee on Thursday. Several council members opposed it as either bad policy or bad timing because it would have gone on the same ballot as five proposed city bond measures totaling $410 million.

Thursday, August 02, 2012

Jerk chicken

Homophobes turned out in droves to support free speech hate on the gay at Chick-fil-A yesterday.


The conversations waiting in a long line at a Houston Chick-fil-A were unusually political Wednesday.

Patrons -jammed into the popular Houston chicken restaurant in Sawyer Heights - said people were asking each other about whether they shared the chain president's views on same-sex marriage or were just hungry. 

To demonstrate what a loser this effort is, even David Dewhurst jumped on the bandwagon, hoping to make some last minute hay.


How'd that work out for ya, Dewfucked?

This isn't about Archie Bunker Dan Cathy's free speech rights, nor is it remotely about Obama or "libruls".  It is the same thing it is always about: right and wrong. And I'm not referring to the Biblical version, either.

Chick-fil-A has donated millions of dollars to anti-gay efforts and causes. They even contributed $25,000 to Tony Perkins' Family Research Council -- you may remember Perkins was an active participant in Rick Perry's Prayerpalooza last summer -- which was used to lobby Congress members to not block approval (see, that's different than 'support') of a Ugandan "Kill the Gays" bill.

Chick-fil-A blew goats long before this clever Cathy marketing scheme to shear conservative sheep came together. I'm only talking about their lousy food. Their closed-on-Sunday policy never bothered this atheist.

No, these people -- the owners and corporate executives, not the minimum wage workers, straight or gay -- have made their Christian conservatism a hallmark of their business right from the get-go, to only the mildest of public rebuke. They saw a business opportunity, and like most greedy corporations, took full advantage of it.

But guess what? There's a counterpoint on the schedule for Friday.

Opponents of the company's stance are planning "Kiss Mor Chiks" for Friday, when they are encouraging people of the same sex to show up at Chick-fil-A restaurants around the country and kiss each other. Houston, which elected the country's first openly gay mayor in a major metropolitan area, is considered a somewhat progressive town, said Houston GLBT Political Caucus president Noel Freman.

"I think there are certain aspects that have gotten away from what it was about in the beginning," Freeman said. "There is a lot of momentum in favor of same-sex marriage. It has been in the news a lot in general. When Chick-fil-A goes out and makes this position public, it's going to grab people's attention."

He said Dan Cathy has given money to anti-gay marriage groups that support taking away marriage licenses for people who are already married. Regardless, he said his group is asking same-sex marriage supporters to be respectful of the Chick-fil-A businesses, particularly because the franchise owner may not agree with the corporate stance.

"If people support same-sex marriage, then I think they shouldn't give their money to efforts to impose a federal ban on it," Freeman said. 

Did you catch that word 'respect'? That's what this is all about. Oh, and freedom also. Freedom to marry the person you love.

I'll let Colonel Sanders have the last word.

"When it comes to the subjugation of marriage rights, I reckon I'm a bit more progressive than my pals down at Chick-fil-A" ... "Yup, let it be known that Colonel Sanders loves the gays. Hell, I might even be gay."

"I know what you're thinking as you're snuggling up there with your bear, 'How do I know you're not just gibberin' this jab to win more of my gay business? Well, you don't." ...

"But if you have to pick one chicken chain, why not pick us? I know their service is better, but we got those bowls."

Presidential not-daily briefing

-- This news broke a few weeks ago: Obama not only assassinated an American citizen with an armed drone, he also assassinated that man's 16-year-old son, a US citizen as well, in a subsequent drone attack. Sort of a Tom Cruise/Minority Report/Department of Pre-Crime kind of thing.

If you only have time for the abridged version, click here.  I didn't need another reason not to support Obama in November, but I got one anyway.

What I really don't understand is how my fellow progressives who call themselves Democrats can complain about George W Bush capturing people like this on the battlefield and then extraordinarily renditioning (read: torture) them, and now overlook Obama's acting as judge, jury and executioner simultaneously.

Too much cognitive dissonance for me.

-- Here's a sliver of slightly good news: Obama is sending aid to Syrian rebels. Unlike some peace advocates, this is the sort of thing I can support.

-- Mitt Romney is still a wealthy out-of-touch putz. He's George Herbert Walker Bush redux without the power of incumbency. No updates today but it's still early in the morning as I post this.

-- Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party is the man most likely to be held responsible for Romney's defeat in 2012. I wonder if Republicans will hold a grudge against him for decades after, like the Democrats do Ralph Nader.

-- That is, if they wouldn't rather blame Gary Johnson and the Libertarians.

-- Green Party presidential and vice- presidential candidates Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala both were arrested as part of a citizen action against two Philadelphia-area Fannie Mae foreclosures.

In explaining why she joined the protest, Stein said that almost half of Americans now live in poverty or near poverty, eight million families face eviction from their homes due to foreclosures, and over a third of mortgage holders are "underwater" - meaning that they owe more to the lenders than their properties are worth on the market.

Said Stein, "The developers and financiers made trillions of dollars through the housing bubble and the imposition of crushing debt on homeowners. And when homeowners could no longer pay them what they demanded, they went to government and got trillions of dollars of bailouts. Every effort of the Obama Administration has been to prop this system up and keep it going at taxpayer expense. It's time for this game to end. It's time for the laws be written to protect the victims and not the perpetrators. It's time for a new deal for America, and a Green New Deal is what we will deliver on taking office. "

Stanart chokes again

As of 9:15 p.m.(Election Night), Harris County still had not posted any voting data from Election Day on its website; only early voting data was available.

Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart said the delay appears to be due to technical problems in relaying the data via phone lines from Reliant Park, the drop-off location for all Election Day data, and the clerk’s election hub in downtown Houston.

“It’s a connectivity issue between here and Reliant,” Stanart said. “We’re trying different phone lines. Apparently Reliant gave us some garbage phone lines out there. That’s what it looks like right now.”

Stanart said, at this point, he’s not sure of the specific problem or who in particular is to blame. ...

Reliant never gave anyone garbage phone lines when Beverly Kaufman was the county clerk. Besides, I thought AT&T was in the phone line business, not Reliant. The morning -- or maybe afternoon -- after...

Stanart blamed delays in posting results on a Reliant Park contractor, saying his office had been given "garbage" phone lines over which to securely transfer voting data downtown.
He said the equipment had been tested, but the Reliant phone lines had not because they were not activated until Tuesday.

Reliant's phone line contractor got it wrong, then. At least that's not as cheesy as blaming the Democrats, as Stanart did in May after the primary election. 'Garbage phone lines', however, doesn't resolve the confusion in the Precinct 2 contest.

The discovery of an error in which some votes were counted twice appears to have changed the result of the Harris County Precinct 2 constable’s race.

County Clerk Stan Stanart said this afternoon he will know more detail about what happened, but said an updated report that went online at 10:12 p.m. displayed incorrect vote tallies for Democratic candidates. One batch of precinct data appears to have been counted twice, he said, while stressing that the final tallies posted at 12:43 a.m. are correct. 

So now we have computers tabulating votes that can count them twice. And the King Street Patriots are worried that Mickey Mouse or the Dallas Cowboys might try to vote.

“When we merged the databases there was an error that was not caught by my people and was not caught by the election judge. We ended up with a double count of one of the databases,” Stanart said, adding he has met with (Precinct 2 Constable candidate Zerick) Guinn and assured him they’ll have a meeting to go over the situation in more detail.

[...]

Guinn said Stanart had no answer when he asked why the number of total votes in the race appeared to drop by 478 between 10:12 p.m. and 12:43 a.m. while his person vote total dropped by 634 votes. 

More on this clusterf:

Stanart said he saw problems in a not-yet-published report of GOP results shortly before midnight, and began running both parties' results from scratch. Stanart said he initially thought the problem was isolated to the report he had just run on the computer he was using, and, thus, did not pull the faulty numbers off the county website and did not inform Democrats because their numbers were being generated by a different computer.

By late Wednesday, Stanart said, he had learned both parties' results online from 10:12 p.m. until at least 12:43 a.m., were wrong, though he stressed only the outcome of Guinn's race had changed.

Do you believe him?

"The Republican Party keeps screaming about voter fraud, but it seems the mistakes, year after year, are happening in the tax assessor's office and the county clerk's office," (HCDP chair Lane) Lewis said.

Stanart and tax assessor Don Sumners, whose office botched the boundaries for the department of education primary, are Republicans. Sumners maintains the department was required to notify him of the boundary changes; the department disagrees.

Stanart said voters should have faith in his office, adding he is going to develop software to verify that the numbers coming from the counting machine and the reporting machine match.

"Election night reporting is just a small portion of the process that goes into ensuring the integrity of the final count," Stanart said. "I understand the importance of having an accurate count for the public. This will never happen again."

Do you believe Stanart? If so, I've got some teabags to sell you. They're only a little rotten around the edges. And to the core.

My friend Keir Murray, FTW.

"You're talking about an election with essentially nobody voting," said political consultant Keir Murray. "If they can't handle this, what's going to happen when we have 1.2 million people voting in November?"