Showing posts sorted by date for query kaufman. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query kaufman. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Monday, December 27, 2021

The Between Holidays Wrangle from Far Left Texas


As we come to the end of another calendar I'll collect some listicles of noteworthy people and events from the past 12 months in a year-end Wrangle.  Today I'm playing ketchup.


As stated before, I favor mask requirements by public and private orgs but not vax mandates.


Moving on to the political happenings before and after the Yule.


Ted Cruz doesn't just want to be the '24 GOP nominee, he expects to be.


We'll see what we can do about that.

Here's a few news items about Lone Star Republicans and Democrats who definitely made Santa's 'naughty' list.


And some on the 'nice' list.


Which provides the segue to the social and criminal justice updates.


Background, ICYMI:


The other environmental headlines.


Influential Texans who departed us over the weekend.


US Rep. Colin Allred:

Texas was home to Sarah Weddington who argued Roe, which no longer exists here. A Texan, LBJ, enshrined voting rights but we're now the hardest state in the country to vote. Our history provides hope for our future. We must keep fighting for a better Texas.


And the calm-me-downs to close today.

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Monday, August 16, 2021

The Epic Failure Wrangle from Far Left Texas


It looks the same wherever you are standing, whether that's inside the Lone Star State or outside of it.


Q isn't sending their best into the streets to protest, it seems.  But they still get their grievances heard ... and approved.


News item: Eastern Harris County lifts shelter-in-place after "mysterious odor"

Update: "What in the sweet libtard hell is this" ... why, that's Briscoe Cain, demonstrating once again that long-term exposure to the fumes in Baytown have damaged his brain.  See, there's a reason why I post cartoons: it's for (those with the intellect of) the children.


One more snarky bit.


One climate update (with more snark following):


As if there might actually be a god, and she's sending Austin Rethugs a message, there'll be another quorum call this afternoon in the Texas House.  Those attending might ought to wear galoshes.


And Stace at Dos Centavos posted some facts about asylum seekers as Abbott and the TXGOP spread COVID lies.  Perhaps there might yet be a political price to be paid by Governor Strangelove for his kow-towing to the lowlife in the GOP.


Don't count on Texas Democrats to capitalize, though.


Okay then.  Probably should post a few items regarding the redistricting/gerrymandering data that dropped last week.


Kuff also took a look at census data.

Wrapping up today with these.

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Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Harris County results, projections for runoffs, and November


This will be the last of these until shortly before May 22 (the primary runoff election date).  And what a relief.  As I've heard it said, the nation's third-largest county in terms of population has a civil and criminal court system larger than several small countries, and getting through the primary ballot -- where some civil and judicial races are left vacant -- is no small feat for the voter.

Sidebar: In the '90's I was a poll worker at a Republican primary voting location in River Oaks -- this was when ballots were still paper, and voter rolls were six pages of varying colors that the clerks had to separate into piles after the poll closed - and one overly-bejeweled woman turned around from the counter where she was marking her ballot and said with an indignant tone: "Why can't I just vote a straight Republican ticket?!"  I carefully explained that all the folks running were Republicans, and that she needed to pick her favorite.  For some reason this did not mollify her.

It's extremely difficult to make a determination beyond party affiliation about whom to select for any particular bench without knowing much about the attorneys running.  Because of the length of the ballot, many voters quit early, resulting in a high number of "undervotes", or races in which the voter picks no one running.  There's always a small -- usually tiny, in fact -- number of "overvotes", or persons selected in more than one race, which happens not on an e-Slate but on a paper 'absentee' or mail-in ballot, mostly used these days by non-ambulatory seniors.

So if you choose to examine the Harris County Democratic primary final results with me -- this is not the canvass, which certifies the election -- you can click on harrisvotes.com, then 'election results', then pick the Democratic primary from the pull-down menu and then your format (I use the .pdf and zoom in to fill my screen because it's easier on my eyes).  You can follow these results as they update live on election night, but Stan Stanart is very slow to update them, thus the #FireStanStanart hashtag on Twitter.  I've previously blogged that his predecessor, Beverly Kaufman, had this process down to a science, and Stanart has never been able to replicate her efficiency.

I've already blogged statewide and Congressional races in two parts, so what you're seeing from page 1 to the bottom of page 8 are the numbers on how those candidates performed in Harris County only; some Congressional districts are entirely within the county, some are not.  I consult the Texas Secretary of State's office for those multi-county contests, which posts statewide tallies, which are transmitted to them by county clerks and election administrators across the state on election night.

Notice that the last two statewide races, at the bottom of page 8, for Presiding Judge of the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals -- Maria T. (Terri) Jackson -- and Judge, Place 7, of the CCA (Ramona Franklin) had an undervote of nearly 38,000, against about 138K cast, or 17%.  Compare that to the undervote in the US Senate race: under 11,000 versus 156.6K, or 6.44%.  Eighteen thousand Democratic voters in Harris County have already stopped voting.  This premise isn't absolute; some people vote just for the judge, or state rep, or Congress person they know, or like, or for that matter against one they don't.  Generally speaking in a primary election, the top races are known to the voters and many downballot candidates aren't, and a couple of hours of research prior to, and a good 15-20 minutes casting their ballot -- not including time spent waiting on queue -- isn't something they have budgeted time for.

Skip on with me to page 17, but note as you do -- if you're clicking page by page -- the very small number of votes and undervotes associated with the state representative races.  All politics is local, and there's the proof.  Again as example, Hubert Vo (HD 149) had 427 undervotes, or a bit over 10% of the 3,777 cast in his race.   But Gordon Goodman, the first countywide judicial on the ballot after all those other ballot lines, was almost double that as a percentage (135.5K voted, 31.9K didn't; a 19% undervote.  Compare to Jackson and Franklin above).

And so it goes.  As with everybody else who voted, made predictions about outcomes, and so forth, I won a few and lost a few.  Notable outcomes included ...

District Judge, 185th: Jason Luong, who squeaked past Brennen Dunn by around 1300 votes out of 138.6K cast, or 50.48-49.52.  There were 28,500 undervotes (and 64 overvotes).  Virtually every card, slate, blogger, person I talked to, etc. mentioned Luong as best or most qualified, so I was surprised the race was this close.  This is where you start to wonder if the first position on the ballot, not to mention the easiest name for people to understand, is worth something at the polls.  A topic to be explored in a subsequent post.

District Judge, 189th: Scott Dollinger prevailed over my choice, Fred Cook, by slightly more than 2500 votes, very close to the same total and undervote.  Dollinger seemed to have the higher online and offline profile to me.

Again, because you don't have much to go on in selecting who might be best for these benches, it really comes down to a handful of subjective factors for many -- I would say most -- voters.  Is this a problem for our judicial system, this partisan election of our judges?  It's probably better than letting the governor pick them, which is what happens now when there's a vacancy.

My point made and my future blogging teased, click on to page 32, where you'll find the beginning of the Harris County executive contests.

County Judge: Lina Hidalgo.  I've written from early on that she was the best choice for Democrats; when she briefly had a primary opponent, to when David Collins found her worthy (Collins himself was a county judge candidate in 2014, representing Harris County Greens, and earned 16.6% of the vote when the Democrat abruptly quit and endorsed incumbent Ed Emmett).  Hidalgo is going to run vigorously against Emmett, who has a couple of strikes against him with Harris County Republicans: one being he's a moderate in a county full of right-wing freaks; two being his efforts to rehabilitate the Astrodome into something useful.

Is that enough for the HCRP to abandon him in November?  I sure am excited to find out.  Hidalgo is going to make Harvey's devastation in the west end of Harris County a campaign topic.  In particular, the horrendous decision to allow developers to build homes in the Addicks and Barker Cypress floodplains (that began in the Eighties, long preceding Emmett's tenure), the subsequent failure of the reservoirs coming under the deluge, and most specifically the decision to release water from those dams to relieve the pressure behind them that flooded out tens of thousands of Houstonians.  Lawsuits to that effect are pending.  Quick digression: for you legal eagles, the argument is related to inverse condemnation rather than negligence.  But read this from the Houston Press.

... in 1996 a report from engineers with the Harris County Flood Control District found that Harris County's reservoir system was not cutting it, a problem that put thousands of home in jeopardy. At that time the proposed solution was a $400 million underground system that would pipe water from the reservoirs to the Houston Ship Channel. However, the advice was never heeded and the report was forgotten.

"My embarrassment is that I knew enough that this was going to happen," Arthur Story, the then-head of Flood Control, told the Dallas Morning News. "And I was not smart enough, bold enough to fight the system, the politics, and stop it."

Hidalgo received 10,000 more votes than Emmett did last Tuesday.  Bad pun: it will still take a perfect storm to oust the incumbent.  Not just a large number of sour conservatives who, at the very least, stand away from him by undervoting the race or voting for the Libertarian Eric Gatlin, but including a wave of Latin@ voters showing up in the fall.

Skip to page 40 for ...

District Clerk (runoff): Marilyn Burgess (49.23%) versus Roslyn "Rozzy" Shorter (23.42%).  The most qualified candidate to take on incumbent Republican Chris Daniel in the fall is Burgess.  Shorter has been my SDEC representative and run for a few other offices, but really doesn't have enough experience to handle the district clerk's responsibilities.

County Clerk (runoff): Diane Trautman (44%) and Gayle Young Mitchell (almost 41%) split what was left after Nat West, also my Senate District chair, came in third with 15%.  Democrats MUST fire Stan Stanart, and I think that can only get done by nominating the very capable Dr. Trautman.

County Treasurer (runoff):  Dylan Osborne (38%) against Cosme Garcia (almost 37%).  Nile Copeland ran third with 25% and just under 35K votes.  There were 29,000 undervotes.  I voted for Garcia and will do so again in May.  Probably only Garcia stands a chance to defeat the incumbent -- also a two-time loser for Houston mayor -- Orlando Sanchez, in a test of which Latino is most popular.  Democratic candidates in the past have run on a campaign of abolishing the office (to no traction from Republican voters).

Democratic Party County Chair: Lillie Schechter ran unopposed; almost 38,000 voters, or 22.65% of the total, either didn't make it all the way to bottom of the ballot ... or declined to vote for her, like me (scroll all the way to the end here for the reasons why I didn't).  I don't see that there was any backlash against her (appearance of) ethical impropriety in those undervotes; the numbers were about the same as -- even less than -- some of the judicial races above her line, including statewide judicials Jackson and Franklin mentioned above, so there's that.

I may profile some of the GOP primary runoff races if anybody cares to read my take on them, so share your thoughts about that, and anything else, in the comments.

Update (3/24):  Aubrey Taylor has some profiles of of GOP and Democratic runoff participants.  Taylor discloses that he is no longer making endorsements, but still takes ads that describe the purchasers as "duly qualified" -- see the ones from Scott Dollinger (D), Linda Dunson (D), Adrian Garcia (D), Loyd Wright (R), Latosha Lewis Payne (D), and others, in the right hand column.  There is nothing that I can glean that these candidates have done (from Taylor's posting) that demonstrates how or why these folks are "duly qualified" beyond their purchase of the advertisement on his blog and his newsletter.  Since almost all of them are judicial candidates, this re-emphasizes the problems mentioned above that I have with how we elect our judges.
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Monday, April 06, 2015

The Weekly Wrangle

With Easter eggs collected, baskets and fake plastic grass all put up, and stuffed bunnies and lawn crosses ready to be stowed away, the Texas Progressive Alliance hopes that our state can learn the lesson of the Indiana debacle.


Here's the round-up of lefty blog posts from last week.

Off the Kuff compared Greg Abbott's performance in heavily Latino districts to that of Rick Perry in 2010.

Libby Shaw, writing for Texas Kaos and contributing to Daily Kos, is absolutely stunned to learn Texas elected a crook as its top cop. Not. The Texas attorney general is an "admitted law breaker".

Socratic Gadfly wrote about the DPS' stupid disciplining of trooper Billy Spears.

Nonsequiteuse explains to Rep. Stuart Spitzer -- the Kaufman Republican who bragged about his sexual history on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives during debate on a budget amendment -- that virginity and abstinence aren't the same thing, and neither will protect a person from all methods of HIV transmission.

John Coby at Bay Area Houston has the rewrite of Greg Abbott's press release on Indiana's RFRA.

Bluedaze noted that Rep. Drew Darby and the authors of HB 140, the bill intended to allow the state to overrule city ordinances regulating fracking, told an inconvenient truth.

Dos Centavos commends Durrel Douglas, a candidate for Houston city council who opposes SB185 (the "show us your papers" bill in the Texas Lege) and has urged Council's involvement.  That's well ahead of any mayoral candidate to date.

A conversation between Sen. Elizabeth Warren and JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon from 2013 provides a clue as to what's wrong with everything, according to PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Neil at All People Have Value said look at things you see in everyday life because they are interesting, and use as few words as you can. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

===============

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas bloggers.

Grits for Breakfast rounds up news stories about the failure of the latest "border surge".

Unfair Park watched the Dallas mayoral debate, and observed that voters seem to be hip to the Trinity Toll Road con.

Better Texas Blog explains how lower oil prices would affect the state's finances.

Texas Vox calls for strengthening the Texas state senate bill aimed at combating government corruption.

The Quintessential Curmudgeon called out the Amarillo Globe News for its hypocrisy.

Carol Morgan blogged about "potty parity" and other useless bills at the Lege.

Joe Cutbirth wants Texas to stand tall for equality.

Elizabeth Rose saw the signs of discrimination in the Deep South as a child, and she sees them today in Indiana.

RG Ratcliffe rounds up a week of Texas political scandal.

And Houston Matters, in today's radio program, will discuss changing attitudes about football and East Texas church arsons.
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Tuesday, February 10, 2015

2016 Republican tapas

-- Rick Perry sniped at Ted Cruz over the weekend, comparing him to Obama.  Cruz, to his credit, didn't take the bait.

Asked about his potential 2016 rival earlier this week, Perry responded, “I think [voters] are going to make a rather radical shift, away from a young, untested United States senator whose policies have really failed.”

“Listen, I like Rick Perry,” Cruz said on CNN’s State of the Union. “People occasionally throw rocks in politics. That’s his choice. I’m going say I think he did a good and effective job as governor of our state.”

Cruz also made another consultant hire, an old Gingrich hand.

Rick Tyler, Gingrich’s longtime spokesman who served as a top strategist to a super PAC that supported Gingrich’s 2012 presidential campaign, will join Cruz’s campaign-in-waiting to serve as a senior communications adviser.

The best news here is that Newt's not running again.  Cruz is also still testing out Occupy themes.  What an amazing triangulator this guy is.

-- Look up "Bush, Jeb" in the dictionary, there's a picture of the 2012 GOP nominee.

Mitt Romney opposed the government's rescue of U.S. automakers. So did Jeb Bush.

Both worked in finance and backed the Wall Street bailout. Both are advocates of tax cuts that Democrats contend only benefit the wealthy and big business.

[...]

"We don't need to try to show that Jeb is like Romney. He pretty much is Romney," said Eddie Vale, vice president of American Bridge 21st Century, a liberal group set up to conduct opposition research on Republicans. "When it comes to any ideas or policies, he's the same as Romney."

If they spend any time thinking about it -- especially if they spend much time thinking about the money they spent four years ago and are about to spend in the next couple -- that comparison might make a lot of one-percenters sad.  It's a good thing they have more money than sense, isn't it?

Obama's team successfully used that bailout as a wedge against Romney in Michigan and Ohio, repeatedly referring to a 2008 Romney op-ed with the headline, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." Although Romney did not write the headline and advocated a managed bankruptcy for the industry, it created the impression that he was willing to forgo thousands of U.S. auto jobs.

Bush's early approach to his potential campaign signals a desire to avoid such pitfalls, as well as Romney's most notable gaffe — his behind-closed-door dismissal of the "47 percent" of Americans who, he said, don't pay income taxes.

Lisa Wagner, Romney's 2012 Midwest fundraising director, said that once voters meet Bush, "they see his head and his heart are connected" and they are "very, very taken" with his "sincerity."

"His head and his heart are connected".  Can you believe people get paid tens of thousands of dollars to spout horseshit like that?

Vox claims polls that show Bush leading the field actually demonstrate Bush's weaknesses.  I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

--  There's no shame in Scott Walker's game, though.  If you wondered why he's the early darling, look no further than here.

Gov. Scott Walker's election history isn’t like anyone else’s in the emerging field of Republican presidential candidates. If he runs, it will be his 14th campaign in 25 years, and his eighth campaign in 13 years.

He is the proverbial perennial candidate, though unlike many who pick up that label, he almost always wins.
The 47-year-old Republican began running at an earlier age and has run more often and won more elections than any of his potential presidential rivals. He has campaigned for office in every even-numbered year since 1994.

Walker’s total of 13 races is padded by his time in the state Assembly, where lawmakers run every two years. And it’s boosted by one election (the 2012 recall) that was forced by his opponents.

Republicans also think he's got some kind of mojo because he wins in 'blue state' Wisconsin.  This is his primary appeal, his top selling point.  It's what he means when he says "I wouldn't bet against me".  Despite his glaring flaws, you can bet easy money that he and Huckabee (whose entire campaign continues to be exclusively focused on hating gays) will be the top contenders for the Iowa prize.  Bush will re-surge in New Hampshire.  And then it's on to South Carolina, where Lindsey Graham is the favorite son.  We're in for another grueling Republican primary season next year, and hopefully lots of those wonderful debates.

-- Rand Paul is extending last week (bad, very bad) into this one.

(Last) August, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and Iowa Republican state Rep. Bobby Kaufmann drove for an hour together between political events in Davenport and Iowa City, jawing about property rights and eminent domain.

In October, Paul headlined a Kaufmann campaign fundraiser, where nearly 400 attendees chowed on barbecued pork, beans and cheesy potatoes in Kaufmann’s eastern Iowa hometown of Wilton, population 2,800.

And that same month, Paul’s political action committee sent Kaufmann’s campaign a $1,000 check.
Paul’s courting of a 29-year-old chairman of the Iowa House’s government oversight committee who has no national stature is hardly accidental: Should the Kentucky Republican run for president, he’ll desperately need support from local leaders like Kaufmann.

Kaufman, however, hasn’t committed to Paul, who was again visiting Iowa last weekend, or any other potential candidate.

“I’m not endorsing anyone yet,” Kaufmann told the Center for Public Integrity.

You can read more at CPI about how the PAC money in early primary states is corrosive to everything decent about our politics.  Paul still has his daddy/vaccine issues, remains busy pissing off the media, and isn't winning any friends among the investor class.  Egberto Willies thinks he's got to be a front-runner at some point, but I just don't see it.

The funniest thing I read this week (so far) was that the sole purpose for Peter King and John Bolton's so-called presidential campaigns was to short-circuit Rand Paul's.  These guys -- including Miss Lindsey -- are all about being a hawk to Paul's dovish, non-interventionist, neo-isolationist foreign policy.

Chris Christie simply isn't worth mentioning any longer.  Bobby Jindal, laughably, is trying to run as a white guy.  This is going to end quickly and badly for both.  There's just no scenario where either one of them is competitive in the early going.

Enough of these conservatives.  Let's look at the Democrats in the next post.
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Monday, April 22, 2013

The Hell Week Wrangle

The thoughts and prayers of the Texas Progressive Alliance are with the people of Boston and West as we bring you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff explains what electric car makers and microbreweries have in common.

There's always a price for stupidity and it's usually steep, especially when it comes to the stupid decision not the regulate key industries. McBlogger observes that the bill for Rick Perry's low regulation heaven came due last week in West.

Before all of the other things happened last week, Swift Boat Bob Perry passed on to his greater reward. Which, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs hopes, is a low-paying job in an extremely warm climate.  

WCNews at Eye on Williamson posts about the former Williamson County DA being charged with a crime: Ken Anderson will be charged with criminal wrongdoing in Michael Morton case.

At TexasKaos, Libby Shaw reminds us that there are no signs of Rick Perry become a human being anytime soon. Check out Rick Perry's Texas: Tax Cuts for Businesses. No Mercy for the Poor.

===============

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

TFN Insider reminds us that the creationists are still at work in the Legislature.

The Great God Pan Is Dead joins with the Houston Art Alliance to paint some trees blue.

Concerned Citizens warns about a teabagger group that targets progressive municipal candidates with nuisance ethics complaints.

Jason Stanford doesn't believe in miracles, at least not as far as test scores are concerned.

Mark Bennett illustrates how spousal privilege may come into play in the Kaufman County murder trials.

Texpatriate finds a reason to be proud of his (Republican) Senator.

Texas Watch offers some tips for dealing with your insurance company after a disaster.

 Texas Leftist gives his impressions of the Gang of Eight immigration bill.

And finally, Flavia Isabel has some helpful hints for domestic bliss.
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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?
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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).
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Thursday, August 02, 2012

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?"

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