Gracias tanto, TDP

Amber Moon, Communications Director
Hector Nieto, Deputy Communications Director
Texas Democratic Party
707 Rio Grande Street
Austin, Texas 78701

Dear Amber and Hector:

Over the past few months, you have done tremendous work to bring the Texas Democratic Party and the surging Texas netroots community together.

Specifically, we want to commend you for the accommodations you provided at the recently completed Texas Democratic Party Convention in Fort Worth. From the front row seating to free wi-fi access, you gave us tremendous access to an excellent convention. Most importantly, you treated us with the same respect you gave to the traditional media.

The Texas blogging community may be an unconventional bunch. We don't write for major dailies, and we can't guarantee thousand-dollar checks. We do, however, work tirelessly -- as volunteers, as activists, as organizers, and as bloggers -- to fight for the candidates and the people of our Texas Democratic Party.

Thanks again for all the work you did helping make the 2006 TDP convention a success, and we are eager to continue working together to help move Texas forward.

Sincerely,
The Texas Progressive Democratic Webloggers

Rep. Aaron Pena
www.acapitolblog.blogspot.com

Sean-Paul Kelley
www.agonist.org

Anna
www.annatopia.com

Perry Dorrell
http://brainsandeggs.blogspot.com

Karl-Thomas Musselman, et al
www.burntorangereport.com

Vince Leibowitz
http://capitolannex.com

Nathan Nance
www.commonsensetx.com

Stace Medellin
dos-centavos.blogspot.com

wcnews and dembones
www.eyeonwilliamson.org

Greg Wythe
www.gregsopinion.com

Shannon & Ted McLaughlin
http://jobsanger.blogspot.com

Matt Glazer
www.justanothermatt.blogspot.com

Marc Gault
www.marcsmiscellany.blogspot.com

Trey McAtee
www.mcblogger.com

Martha Griffin
http://muse-musings.blogspot.com

Charles Kuffner
www.offthekuff.com/mt

M. Eddie Rodriguez
http://theredstate.typepad.com

Texas Kos
http://soapblox.net/texaskos

CC: Boyd Richie, Chairman, Texas Democratic Party
Ruben Hernandez, Executive Director, Texas Democratic Party

A lawsuit in Texas against electronic voting

From the Longview News-Journal:

Two Travis County voters, joined by Democratic nominee for Texas Attorney General David Van Os and the Texas Civil Rights Project, filed a lawsuit in state district court Wednesday seeking to block the use of electronic voting machines that do not produce paper receipts.

The lawsuit claims that the paperless machines violate the public's right to a secure election and the purity of the ballot box under the Texas Constitution, according to a news release.

Darryl Primo, Gregg County's Precinct 2 commissioner, said he isn't surprised that someone is challenging electronic voting machines. He said he was the lone dissenting vote when commissioners purchased 160 machines in October using a $539,000 grant from the Help America to Vote Act.

Primo said he voted to purchase additional equipment to produce receipts that would allow for a voter audit trail.

"They voted not to do it. I wanted to do it; they voted not to do it," Primo said, "and it sits like a time bomb ticking away until the next time we have a contested election."

...

Primo pointed to the 1992 county judge election between Ken Walker and David Wright, when it took five recounts before Walker was declared the winner by fewer than 10 votes.

"Here's the issue, that the people I spoke with a year ago said that no matter how many safeguards were put into the design of these (electronic voting machines), there were vulnerabilities in the system," he said.

...

"When every voter cannot be sure that a machine recorded his or her vote the way he or she intended, democracy is not fulfilled," (Van Os) said. "These paperless machines are a direct threat to constitutional democracy. We must have paper ballots."

Much more you should read between the ellipses above. The Austin American-Statesman takes a more pessimistic slant (that is, for voters who want fair elections) :

The lawsuit argues that voters have no way of knowing whether the vote they cast is recorded or stored correctly by the eSlate system, which has been used in Travis County since 2002, and that electronic systems are prone to fraud and mistakes. The group wants an injunction to block use of the machines and cites government and media reports detailing problems with electronic voting in Texas and other states.

Travis County has embraced the technology, switching to electronic voting for everything but absentee ballots. The federal government required Texas to put at least one electronic voting machine in each precinct by Jan. 1 so people with disabilities can easily vote.

DeBeauvoir and a spokesman for Williams, along with the founder of the Austin company that created eSlate, all rejected the claim that paper ballots are necessary for a fair and secure election.

"I am not a lawyer but I kind of doubt that there is much of an argument," said DeBeauvoir, whose office runs elections in Travis County. "I believe that the system is accurate and secure the way it is."

David Hart, the founder of Hart InterCivic, said that more than 400 jurisdictions nationwide use the company's eSlate system, which uses tablet-size screens on which votes are cast with dials and buttons.

He said the system, which is not connected to the Internet, stores ballot information in three electronic places. In Travis County, it captures images of each ballot so electronic or manual recounts can be conducted.

"The eSlate system has got a lot of security built into it," he said.

The difference in opinion presented in these two stories could illustrate the divide between rural Texas and the state's capital city: Austin is where Hart Intercivic -- the company that supplies the eSlates used to cast ballots in Travis County as well as the rest of Texas -- is headquartered. And the state Capitol, where the corrupt Republicans who authorized this purchase gather biennially, is right up the road from the AAS building.

The company seems to have been a small, only-slightly-imbalanced player in the political contributions game (.pdf file) but maybe there's an embedded special interest in there somewhere.

You think?

More TDP photos

The Van Os-mobile.

Anna of Annatopia, who organized our Blogger's Caucus at the Flying Saucer, the most successful social event of the convention.

David Van Os and his women: from left daughters, Kay Cee, Leya, and Maya, wife Rachel.

Hank Gilbert and family.

Blogger's Alley inside the convention center.

I, The Media.

Fred Head's statement on public education.

Thanks to TomTech of Daily Kos for these. Here's more.

Why Rove wasn't indicted

Seth Abramson, a criminal attorney who writes the outstanding Suburban Ectstasies blog, has the brain candy. It's an easy three-step explanation showing how prosecutorial trial strategy, and not Rove's innocence, was the reason "Turd Blossom" escaped federal prosecution, but let's skip right to the smackdown:

Conclusion. Any competent lawyer will tell you that Rove got off on Perjury/Obstruction of Justice charges because the case against Scooter Libby was infinitesimally stronger than the case against Rove, and thus Fitzgerald went with the stronger prosecution over the weaker. (For the analysis of an incompetent attorney, see here). This doesn't mean that Rove is innocent, of course. In fact, it doesn't even mean Fitzgerald thinks he couldn't convict Rove. It means only this: that if Fitzgerald thinks he has a 95% or greater chance of convicting Libby, he must, therefore, think that he has a 94% or less chance of convicting Rove. So, it's simple trial strategy at work here, not anything the Porcine Wonder did. Don't let the media mislead you into thinking the lack of a Rove indictment means the case against him was weak. It wasn't. It isn't. It never will be. Which is why Rove will lose his shirt in the civil suit that's coming down the line any day now.

Perhaps I'll save that bottle of bubbly I was chilling for Fitzmas after all ...