Early Voting Begins Today

Oh no, not another election.

Depending on where you live you might be having a city election, a MUD election or a school board election. Saturday, May 8th is the statutory uniform election day for local elections here in Texas.

Early voting for that election begins today and extends through Tuesday, May 4th. In Fort Bend County you can find out your early voting location here at the county elections website.

The schedule varies depending on what election you are voting in so you have to click on the separate election links from there.

Now I already went and looked. In every election listed in Fort Bend County no polling location will be open on Sunday. None.

And it’s even dicey on Saturday. For instance, out of the ten early voting locations listed for a majority of the elections (the ones where one would go and vote early for the Fort Bend ISD Board of Trustees, for instance) only four of them are open on Saturday. So if you’re planning on voting on Saturday because you can’t make it to the polls between 7 AM and 7 PM on weekdays, make sure you go to one of these poll locations this Saturday between 7 AM and 5 PM:

Aliana Clubhouse – 17122 West Bellfort, Richmond, TX
Missouri City Community Center – 1522 Texas Pkwy, Missouri City, TX
Hightower High School – 3333 Hurricane Lane, Missouri City, TX
First Colony Conference Center – 3232 Austin Parkway, Sugar Land, TX

Everybody else will be closed on Saturday.

I’m voting tomorrow. I vote in every election. I always early vote and I always early vote on Day 2 so there are no glitches and they’re operational or have identified the problems and established the workarounds.

And no, I’m not making any endorsements on the school board election. No one would listen to me anyway.

Well . . . OK, I’ll make one anti-endorsement. I’ll not vote for Jim Rice. First because he’s a Triple R – I checked – and next because as an established vendor that has done work for the school district, he’s just too close to the situation notwithstanding the fact that his firm will not bid on district contracts if he is elected. He has even said that he will recuse himself in bid award decisions. Frankly that disqualifies him because I want a voting board member, not a non-voting one. Oh, and my third reason for not voting for Rice is one I just came up with today. Not an hour ago I listened to a voicemail message from Rice. Rice paid for a robocall ad. This is when a candidate or his surrogate records a message and then pays someone with a robophone to dial a list of numbers and deliver the recorded message.

Now I don’t hate robocalls. I kind of like them because you can do stuff with recorded messages. What I didn’t like about this particular robocall is that the message was really boring.

Compared to the robocalls I received in the Republican primary, where the attacks were absolutely bloodletting – Rocky Road with sprinkles if you will, this robocall was plain Vanilla.

No, if you’re going to make me sit through a robocall to see if you say anything really awful about your opponent, and you don’t, and it’s a really boring message besides, then you don’t get my vote.

Early Vote Totals for Fort Bend County

October 30th was the last day of early voting in this off-off year election in Fort Bend County. At issue were the eleven statewide propositions that would become constitutional amendments for the Texas constitution.

And that is all unless you are lucky enough to live in a city or municipality where there were local elections.

Like in the portions of Fort Bend County that lie within the city boundaries of Houston. Then you have quite a ballot before you. Especially the 4-way race for Houston mayor between Peter Brown, the rich guy, Gene Locke, the black guy, Anise Parker, the gay woman, and Roy Morales, the loser.

The smart money is on Peter Brown. Houston won’t be electing a Republican for the time being, and a gay woman probably never. Brown is self-financing and is ahead in the polls largely based on his aggressive ad campaign.

Locke doesn’t have a chance.

Frankly I hope Parker can pull it off, but doubt that Houstonians are evolved enough to get beyond Parker’s lifestyle.

And the latest news is that Peter Brown’s campaign got the benefit of a lift from former congressman Nick Lampson who did some phone banking for Brown last week.

Anyway with the early vote over we can now report that a total of 5100 voters voted early in Fort Bend County, and a total of 210 voters voted by mail. 5310 total votes.

That’s 1.96% of the total registered voters in Fort Bend County.

That’s pretty lackluster. Even at the early voting locations that Houston residents voted at, a mere 804 voters bothered to show up, although that does represent 15% of all early voters in Fort Bend County.

So there’s that.

Still and all, with numbers like this, it’s truly amazing that America can call itself a democracy. When one person can vote for ten others, American elections look more like elections held in Afghanistan than one would ordinarily think.

Voting in Texas Elections vs. Parental Complaints

As one who votes in every election that they will let me in the door for, I have to say I am surprised and a little miffed at a story I heard today when I went to cast my vote in the Texas Constitutional Amendment election, the only election here in Fort Bend County.

I typically go to a middle school campus that is roughly between my workplace and my residence to early vote.

It is convenient and usually the lines are short.

Today it was no different in terms of lines, there were none, but not in terms of the convenience. Upon arriving and presenting my voter registration card I was made to stand by while the elections clerk waited for his laptop PC to connect to the internet.

It took an overly long amount of time and the light that was emitted by the scanner that would scan the bar code on my registration card kept switching between red and green.

Back and forth.

We joked that maybe the kids at the school had hacked into the system – a joke that was too serious to laugh too much about these days – and finally the scanner was ready to scan my card.

Then as we were waiting for the adhesive tape to print out, again in a stutter-stop way, I was told the real reason why there was such slow service. It seems that the reception in the area of the school that the polling place was located was very poor. Poor enough to make what should have been a 10 second procedure turn into a 5 minute one.

And then I heard something that made me cringe.

“It was much better when we set up in front in the lobby.”

I replied, “That’s right, you used to have this up front near the front circle. Why did you move back here?”

[I keep forgetting not to ask questions to which I don’t want to hear the answer]

“The parents complained that we were making too much noise.”

Now I have to ask myself, what would have happened if the poor reception that the elections clerk was getting today occurred on a heavy turnout early voting day? How far out the door would the line to get in to vote have gone? How many voters would have turned back in disgust because of the horrendous wait time?

This is clearly a case of misplaced priorities. Parental complaints need to be prioritized right behind everything else when it comes to the democratic process, and any facility that provides space for citizens to cast their votes in elections needs to ensure that this space is optimal for that purpose.

Otherwise, Fort Bend County should take its business elsewhere.

Early Voting on Texas Constitutional Amendments Begins Today

On every odd year the state government of Texas throws a little party for 181 part-time state employees. A party that lasts 140 days. And these are part-time because they only work for those 140 days every other year.

This past year the 150 state house legislators and 31 state senators worked semi-feverishly to pass eleven laws that need your endorsement before they become the law of the land. Eleven laws that become permanent parts of the state constitution of Texas.

A document that can be found online here.

So on these off-off years between presidential and mid-term elections, we Texans are duty-bound to show up at the polls to give these amendments to our constitution an up or down vote.

And as you can well guess, unless the constitutional amendment is a hot-button issue with social conservatives, these elections are poorly attended.

You know, like the constitutional amendment that was added to the Texas constitution in 2005 that banned same sex marriage and civil unions. That one I well-remember because the line to the poll went out the door and halfway to the street at my Election Day polling place on November 8th 2005. And everyone in line knew each other because they all attended the same church. That amendment, encapsulated in Proposition 2 that year, passed in Fort Bend County by a vote of 35,695 in favor (82.55%) to 7,542 against (17.44%). Statewide, it passed by 75% to 25%.

Texans that vote in off-off year elections hate gays, you see.

Anyway, the time has come again to vote for your favorite constitutional amendments and I have done the homework for you. One of my favorite state representatives, State Rep. Scott Hochberg (D - Houston), has put up a very good and informative website on the 11 propositions. The first page gives you the short blurb on the subject matter of each, but then if you click on the individual proposition hyperlink you get a separate web page for each proposition, including background and arguments for and against the proposition.

I found it hugely informative.

I think, for instance, that you’d be crazy to vote against Proposition 11.

Anyway, as the title of this piece says, early voting for the Constitutional Amendment Election starts today, with Election Day being on November 3rd. The Fort Bend County Elections office has Early Voting locations and hours posted at its website, or you can just click here to get to the website. You then click on the individual polling location on the map to get a listing of the days and hours of operation (they differ from place to place).

Here, you can see the Election Day voting locations in Fort Bend County. All polls open at 7AM and close at 7 PM on that day.

True Dat

May 9th is Election Day – Go Vote

This is it. May 9^th 2009. Election Day in city elections, MUDs and school districts. It doesn’t get more local than this.

These elections affect your life the most because when politics are local, the effect is local, too.

In Fort Bend ISD you have a choice. And apparently the candidates have split themselves into tickets, because where you see an Albright campaign sign, you see a Cain sign right next to it.

So is the case with Bhuchar and Glover.

So you have a clear choice here. You can vote for the rabble rousers who want to turn their fellow Trustees on their respective ears, or you can vote for the status quo, which is he message I am getting by seeing Marilyn Glover’s sign next to Sonal Bhuchar’s.

Because that’s where you usually see it, when it isn’t laying down in the grass, that is (look closely at the Albright/Cain photograph above).

Or, you can be original. Make your own ticket. Mix and match.

That’s fun, too.

Halfway Through FBISD Trustee Early Vote

With one week down and one to go, we are now halfway through the early vote part of the May 9^th Joint Election where voters will choose between 3 rookies for one trustee seat, and between a rookie and the current FBISD board president.

And it looks like people are coming out to vote in this thing.

A few anyway.

Early vote totals for the first week stands at 1226 as of the end of the voting day on May Day. Most of the voting seems to be taking place in Sugar Land where most of the 10 early voting polling sites are located.

When I showed up to early vote at my usual place, I joked with the election workers when they asked me if I was there to vote. I said “Yes, me and three other guys.”

In this, as it turns out, I was not wrong.

In addition to the early vote, a total of 389 absentee ballots have been received of a total of 1296 that have been requested. Of these we don’t really know which of them were cast from voters who live within Fort Bend ISD boundaries, so what the heck, let’s assume all of them are.

So right now, as it stands, according to my calculations a total of 1615 ballots have been cast in the election, or about 1.061% of the total electorate within FBISD boundaries.

That’s low.

Well, we had that bad rainstorm on Monday evening and all of the school voting locations were closed on Tuesday because Fort Bend ISD decided to close all of their schools for some reason.

And then there’s the H1N1 problem that’s on a lot of peoples’ minds right now, and maybe the last thing they want to do is go to a public school campus and vote.

In 2008 the school board election attracted 14,848 voters or just over 9.76%, which is, in school board elections a huge crowd. With so many teabaggers out there who are angry about how their bond dollars are being spent, or are not being spend, or are angry over what they perceive as the superintendent’s pet project to build a Global Science Center, you would think the early vote numbers would be a little higher right now.

So I wonder what’s going on.

Joint Election Early Voting Starts On April 27th

So if you want to exercise your opinion on local politics, or if you want a huge say in what kind of school board you want running your life, go vote in the Joint Election. No it's not an election to legalize marijuana, several entities have combined together for this uniform election day to make it less costly and more efficient.

Go vote.

Vote because voter turnout for these elections is pitifully small. You could have as much as 15 to 20 times the voting clout as your neighbors because for one reason or another, they don’t vote in these things.

Early voting starts tomorrow. April 27th and goes for an astounding 2 weeks with the last day of early voting on El Cinco de Mayo (the only holiday we Americans celebrate because of a beer company’s ad campaign).

Races in the joint election are for races in Fort Bend ISD, City of Arcola, City of Missouri City, City of Sugar Land and the Kingsbridge MUD

And there are tons of voting locations. Click here for a .PDF file of times and locations.

But what the heck, if you are a procrastinator like I have been lately or for some reason you still think that only certain privileged people can early vote wait until Election Day on May 9^th (it’s on a Saturday – isn’t that a novel concept?)

There are more voting locations then, I guess to avoid all the long lines.

(That was a joke)

The Wallace Line: Private Funding Sought for Science Center

Not that you didn’t hear about this before . . .

I hate to say it. I really do. No, really I hate to say this thing that I hate to say. The thing that nobody wanted to listen to me about. The thing that . . . oh H-E-double-hockey-sticks . . . I was RIGHT as RAIN about.

In this afternoon’s FortBendNow, out comes David Wallace with the bombshell that I thought would have been delivered in about, oh . . .say, three weeks from now.

“We have had talks with private businesses and institutions that have expressed interest in the possibilities of forming collaborative partnerships to help fund the center. If we could move in that direction, we believe the center could be funded without any need to raise taxes, or take away resources already allocated for other district purposes.”

So let me translate.

In order to fund the construction of the proposed Fort Bend ISD Global Science and Technology Center, the district is looking for external sources and “collaborative partnerships.” That is, the plan is that no public funds will be involved in the construction of this center. No money to buy copy paper, no money to buy textbooks will be used to fund this “Taj Mahal.”

Gee, no kidding.

So my read of Ms. Bhuchar’s comments and cautions to her opponent had some degree of validity after all.

Why, a reader wrote in the comments section to the blog posting in question, would the district construct a “sales pitch” to the public if they already had the funds lined up?

Why indeed. Maybe they didn’t, and the feasibility study was conducted to find out if they would have it. Or maybe the “red herring” was well-played. Who knows what the truth is.

One thing is for sure, with this announcement coming out one month before Election Day rather than one week before, we will all now get to witness how or whether there is a realignment in argument. My question, asked in the previous blog is still timely:

“My question, then, is this: if the funding is found, and the Global Science and Technology Center is planned and built with this private sector funding, is there any further objection to the project? Private sector funds in this case would never be used to buy textbooks, copier paper, or pay salaries of teachers. These funds are donated with the express purpose of seeing this thing gets done.”

So the question remains: is there any further objection to the project?

And if there are now new objections to the project, where were they before?

Are we willing to look a gift horse in the mouth? Even if the gift horse will have to be called the Taj MaSchlumberger? The Fluorapalooza?

At the FBEF Candidates Forum

Rather than rattle off a first impression of the Fort Bend Board of Trustees candidate’s forum yesterday evening, I decided to place the pot on the back burner and turn it on to “low.”

Mainly because I have never, in my short history of school board candidate forum attendance, come away from one of these things so conflicted.

Can we have another box to check on the ballot?

One that says “None of the above?”

First, two of the five candidates did not show up. Nor did they submit answers to the nine questions formulated by the Fort Bend Employee Federation (aka “The Teacher’s Union”). One of these, I did expect. Sonal Bhuchar offered that she had an early flight, or some such thing, on the following morning, thus preventing her from attending the meeting.

Or submitting written answers to the 9 questions.

As president of the BOT, maybe she should have taken this a little more seriously. But given the election results last time she was up for election, where she took the field with 39.8% of the vote, leading her closest competitor (there were 3 of them) by 1147 votes (a full 10% of the total vote) maybe she feels safe as an incumbent, board president, and, as Carlos Cain referred to her (time and time again), as the official seal of approval on the Fort Bend ISD Bend ISD Board of Trustees (that is, he called her a “rubber stamp”).

All of that, and her public indecisiveness on the funding and construction of the proposed Global Science and Technology Center, aka “The Taj Mahal” should help voters decide her case right promptly.

I was a little surprised that Rodrigo Carreon was a no-show. He always shows up to anything. But given the explanation seen here, I can see his point. Less than 24 hours notice to construct positions on these 9 questions is a little bit much to take. Not that he doesn’t have positions on all of these points. From past elections, if I’m not wrong, he has answered some of these questions before. Not that it garnered him a teacher’s union endorsement. It didn’t. My thinking is that given the choice between sitting down at home the night before last and writing his answers down . . . again . . . and maybe having some food and beverages at his buddy’s Texas Hold ‘Em party, maybe he opted for the latter.

But three candidates did show up.

Marilyn Glover came off as a bit of a surprise. Ms. Glover had to sit up straight in order to be seen sitting at the candidates’ table. She characterized herself as “small, but a bulldog.” The other surprise, one that gave me pause, was that Ms. Glover’s husband, who was sitting in the front row at the meeting, piped up and offered his take on a question posed to his wife.

One final surprise is that she didn’t seem to have as good a grasp of the duties of a BOT member as I thought she would. As a Republican precinct chair, we know her politics. And as an HR manager we know her background. And it was she, of the three candidates, who seemed to know what it was behind the Union-generated question referencing to whether she would vote to allow FBISD employees to “meet and confer” with administration on matters of policy and procedures.

This question was “The Union Test.” She failed.

“I have always met with management directly because I felt I was best at explaining and asking questions about my situation.”

Black ball to Glover.

Not to mention the fact that Glover declined to express an opinion on construction of the Science Center, citing a lack of direct knowledge other than “what I have read in the newspaper”. My guess is that this issue by itself will mobilize a few thousand to go to the polls, something that has not escaped the notice of her opponent, Bruce Albright, or Sonal Bhuchar’s opponent, Carlos Cain.

Bringing me to the Dueling Duo, Cain and Albright.

Cain, having no one to fence with, did so anyway, calling his absent opponent a “rubber stamp” on the board. His final comment, the comment of the evening, was a comment on his qualifications as a trustee. “The person I am running against is the most qualified,” declared Cain. Qualified as the board’s “rubber stamp.”

Cain was folksy, tended to lapse into anecdotes, and his quiet demeanor belied his tendency to SPEAK IN ALL CAPS, at least when he writes things down. Albright spoke lots, but when he did, all you had to do was glance down at his answers to the 9 union questions distributed to the members of the audience – he read from that. When asked the more impromptu questions from the floor, you got a better feel for his grasp of the topics. Basically, I guess you could say it was hit or miss. Sometimes dead on, sometimes he missed the point of the questioner.

Cain came off as the scrappy one. In reference to the board’s 90 million dollar “Fund Balance,” Cain responded, “I am the one that actually discovered this ‘Slush Fund’ while facing off with FBISD in during the 2007 Bond Referendum. This fund balance is actually money from the 2003 Bond Referendum that was never used.”

No one bothered to take issue with this. The fact that some of the 2003 bond issue projects have yet to be completed, or paid for, did not come up. It didn’t have to. Clearly, if the voters want to elect a scrappy guy to the Board of Trustees, Cain is their man.

As a candidate, Albright was alright. And of the three on the stage, I lean toward this guy the most as someone I’d like to see on the board. I think, however, that personally speaking, the jury is still out. There is no incumbent on the current board that I would really and truly like to see sent packing. Not like last time or the time before last.

Of the three, I do have one un-recommendation. Give Glover a pass. She opposes union reps at campuses, and won’t even divulge her concerns on the burning issue of the day.

Besides, the last thing we need is another HR manager in high places.

Oh, and Dunn, "vye" is spelled "vie."

Fort Bend Employees Federation Holds Candidates Forum Tonight

I heard about this some time back, but when in the run-up to today I heard nothing further, and assumed that the Fort Bend Employees Federation, aka the Teacher’s Union, had postponed or cancelled.

Nothing like that occurred. Today we see in FortBendNow that the candidates forum will be held as scheduled.

Where: Sugar Land Marriott. [map] (Just go in the lobby area and look for a bunch of people going into a meeting room. That will be it unless there’s also a meeting for someone’s make money at home scheme or something like that. Choose the meeting with the grim-faced people going in. The happy people with money hanging out of their pockets are going to the Ponzi Scheme meeting).

When: 7 PM April 2nd, 2009 (they say it will go for 2 hours)

Nothing has been announced about which candidates will show up. It varies. Some candidates for school board opt out of this meeting because the last thing they want to do is address a bunch of people interested in education (they usually have a “time conflict” for an excuse).

I’d be interested in going just to see if Carlos Cain TALKS LIKE HE WRITES.

Fort Bend Voters in the Final Analysis

So I want to put this election to rest today, or so I hope. The headline on the Fort Bend Star this week says it all: “Fort Bend voting breaks records but Republicans still triumphant.”

And all but for the very bottom of the ticket, that is a correct statement.

While Barack Obama carried the day in the Electoral College and popular vote, he failed to win in Fort Bend County, despite the huge voter turnout. My guess is, because of the very strong feelings Republicans in this county have against having a black Democratic president, Republicans themselves turned out in their greater numbers.

They did that everywhere but in Precinct 1, where they may have split their vote between the Democrat, Richard Morrison, whose name is forever associated with opposition to the Grand Parkway toll road, and Greg Ordineaux whose name is intricately linked with toll roads in general.

The theory goes that voter demographic shifts can be best revealed in looking at the non-controversial county-wide level.

Judge races in other words.

And this time we saw some races in the very uncontroversial areas like district judges and appeals court justices that were much closer than in any time in the past.

Except for Jim Sharp, who actually won his race this time for 1st Court of Appeals Court Judge, these races were squeakers for the Republican incumbents.

Look at my graphic. I deduced the way Democrats and Republicans voted in these non-controversial races and can see a trend. From a near 40:60 Democratic to Republican ratio in the nineties, we see the spread between the two parties get narrower. From 40:60 in the early nineties, to 42:58 in the late nineties, and ’00 to ’02, to 45:55 in ’04 and ’06, to 49:51 this year.

And this is ahead of the “Obama Bump,” I think, because of the undervotes associated with these judge races, and because even after discounting undervotes, the proportions voting for Obama were just about the same as the ones voting for Democrats for judgeships.

No, I think we are witnessing an effective shift in voter demographics in Fort Bend County, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 to 2% per election cycle.

That being said, as Bev Carter mentions in her weekly Fort Bend Star column, if Democrats don’t file for every countywide race there is in 2010, there is something seriously wrong as it looks like, barring any change in the trend, it will be their big year.

Our big year.

Our big year to flip this county.

Voter Identification in Texas: Know Your Rights

In 2007 State Rep. Phil King (R - Weatherford) introduced House Bill 626. This bill would have required voters to come to their polling locations not only with their voter registration certificate, but some form of identification that has your photograph on it.

That and another similar bill, HB 218, were voted down.

Texas, unlike Indiana, has no law on the books requiring voters provide a photo ID in order to vote.

But wouldn’t you know, there is a story going around that someone at the Texas Secretary of State help desk is saying that voters must provide a photo ID. They can have a registration certificate, but they need to see that photo ID before they’ll let you vote.

Now this didn’t happen to me when I early voted on Monday. But you can bet that if this lie gets spread often enough and long enough, someone is not going to be allowed to vote this year.

So if you haven’t voted yet, know your rights before you go to the polls. This information on what is required for a voter to identify him/herself was taken right off the Texas SecState’s website:

Voter registration certificate

• Once you apply, a voter registration certificate (proof of registration) will be mailed to you within 30 days.
• Check your certificate to be sure all information is correct. (If there is a mistake, make corrections and return it to the voter registrar immediately.)
• When you go to the polls to vote, present your certificate as proof of registration.
  You may vote without your certificate by signing an affidavit at the polling place and showing some other form of identification (for example, driver's license, birth certificate, copy of electric bill).
• If you lose your certificate, notify your county Voter Registrar in writing to receive a new one.
• You will automatically receive a new certificate every two years, if you haven't moved from the address at which you are registered.

Now that fourth bullet is a little odd. I have been in voting lines year after year and I have never seen a poll worker make a voter sign an affidavit when they present their driver’s license instead of a voter registration certificate. I have actually heard one poll worker make snide comments about driver’s licenses, that they are “real forms of identification,” implying that voter registration certificates are not.

So if anything, we have poll workers in Fort Bend County that operate in contravention of the law. What a big surprise.

This idea that a photo ID will prevent voting fraud is complete nonsense. The only reason Republicans came up with it is because they are the most probable practitioners of the process. Take Republican congressional candidate Pete Olson, for example. Here’s a guy who maintained voter registration in two states, and voted in two states during the same year. A level 6 felony in Virginia.

So, do you want to see good examples of voter fraud? Go to a poll and watch a Republican poll worker to get some ideas.

Or tap into the voting records of Republicans in multiple states. Republicans love to vote, and love to vote more often than you do.

Voting Locations in Fort Bend County: A Shell Game

A couple of days ago I mentioned in passing that it looked like the Fort Bend County elections office had unceremoniously changed the polling locations of precinct 2123.

It’s a little worse.

The polling locations of several precincts have been changed without word or warning. Thousands of voters could be left standing in front of a dark building on Election Day.

I view this as highly suspicious as I mentioned previously. This is a classic bait and switch voter suppression tactic.

And I wouldn’t be too concerned, but it looks like the county targeted two very Democratic precincts to do their nasty business. 2123 as previously reported, and also Precinct 1114, a precinct centered on the liberal leaning Teal Run development.
And I do mean liberal.

In 2006, voters in Teal Run, Precinct 1114 cast 760 straight Democratic votes (92% of all straight ticket votes cast in the precinct). In 2006 voters in Teal Run, Precinct 1114 cast 1016 votes for Barbara Ann Radnofsky who ran for US Senate against Kay Bailey Hutchison. That’s 83% of senate votes cast. Barbara Ann mustered just 36% of the vote statewide.

Precinct 2123, tucked in the far eastern corner of Fort Bend County, is even more impressively Democratic, percentage-wise anyway.

In 2006, voters in Precinct 2123 cast 314 straight Democratic votes (95% of all straight ticket votes cast in the precinct). In 2006 voters in Precinct 2123 cast 419 votes for Barbara Ann Radnofsky who ran for US Senate against Kay Bailey Hutchison. That’s 87% of senate votes cast.

But now, after voting in the same location for years, voters in 1114 and 2123 must find their way to new polling locations

Precinct 1114’s old location at Burton Elementary School is changed to Fort Bend County MUD 23, the M.R. Massey Admin B building.

Precinct 2123 old location at Meadowcreek Clubhouse is changed to Quail Valley Elementary School.

The democratic process, it seems, in Fort Bend County anyway, has become some sort of bizarre shell game with the pea being a place to cast your vote.

Quite frankly, the voting process in Iraq, blue thumbs and all, makes this democratic system look more like that of a banana republic’s.

Machiavelli would be pleased.

So I Early Voted Today

On Day 2 of early voting here in Texas, the next battleground for Obama/Clinton convention delegates, I showed up at my usual early voting location, conveniently located between my place of work and my place of residence.

The line was long by standards that I am used to at this polling place.

Two individuals were in front of me in the Democratic Party line. Looking over, I noticed that no one, not a single solitary Red State voter, was in line, checking in, OR voting. Not a single Dark Side voter was on the scene.

I had to laugh at the one voter casting his ballot in the voting booth on the Democratic side. He came back to the front and asked about the ballot, saying that he votes for both Democrats and Republicans, and where was that ballot? So they explained to him that he had to choose one or the other.

On further reflection I had to ask myself if this gentleman was just faking them out. Democrats here in Fort Bend County quite often feel the need to disguise themselves so their neighbors won’t think ill of them (or leave them off their daughter’s wedding invitation list). I know this must sound strange to those of you tuning in from saner parts of the world, but that’s how it really is here.

Nevertheless, it looks like Fort Bend County voters are on trend with the rest of the country. Take a look at the daily early vote numbers. It is posted here at the Fort Bend County elections site. Numbers aren’t up yet for today (it is, at this writing a scant 21 minutes since early vote polling sites closed), but on the first day of early voting, a total of 2564 voters showed up county-wide, and of them, 1710 of them were Democrats (or voters who voted the Democratic ballot).

Is that good? Well let’s compare the primary voting trends in 2004 compared to the present. In 2004, a total of 2106 Democratic voters turned out in the early voting – ALL of the early voting. Holy H-E Double Hockey Sticks! In the 2008 primary, Democrats have posted a turnout total for the FIRST DAY of early voting in 2008 that is just shy of 400 voters for the ENTIRE early voting period in 2004.

That’s what I call some fed up voters.

How does that compare to our Dark Side neighbors? I knew you’d ask. In 2004, a total of 4575 Republican voters turned out for early voting in that year’s primary, compared to 944 for the first day of early voting in 2008. So their numbers are slightly higher also if the trend continues on pace.

But if these numbers are a reflection of how much county voters want change in this Reddest of Red counties, we are going to see something magical this time around.

Finally, finally, Democrats are stirred up and out voting in force.

UPDATE as of 2/29:

Democrats on Tuesday 2/19: 1710
Democrats on Wednesday 2/20: 1515

Democrats on Thursday 2/21: 1827

Democrats on Friday 2/22: 2511

Democrats on Saturday 2/23: 4139

Democrats on Sunday 2/24: 1644

Democrats on Monday 2/25: 2786

Democrats on Tuesday 2/26: 3067

Democrats on Wednesday 2/27: 3319

Democrats on Thursday 2/28: 4421

Democrats on Friday 2/29: 7448

Total Democrats voting in 2008 primary t0-date: 34,387

% total Democratic turnout increase over 2004 presidential primary (to-date): 1634%

Democrat to Republican ratio to-date: 2.40: 1

Fort Bend County Elections Chief Resigns On Opening Day

Just when we here in Texas are just settling down for a nice primary vote, early voting began today for the March 4th primary, our county elections administrator, J. R. Perez, pulled the plug and said “adios” to the Fort Bend Elections Commission.

But wait, when you tender your resignation, there is some sort of notice given, right? So the employer isn’t left in the lurch (especially on the first day of early voting). Most telling in all of this is the fact that the Commission made his resignation effective immediately.

According to FortBendNow:

“‘We have removed him from his responsibilities and replaced him with Robin Heiman,’ the first assistant elections administrator, said Fort Bend County Judge Bob Hebert, who also serves as Election Commission chairman, after the commission meeting.”

Yes, you heard that right: the county elections administrator quit on the first day of early voting in what is to be, very arguably, the biggest primary election voter turnout in living memory – and most likely, the largest turnout in Fort Bend County history.

The meeting today was behind closed doors. The press was barred from attending, being presented with an opinion of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on whether a meeting of an Elections Commission constituted a public meeting under the “Texas Open Meetings Act”. It wasn’t said Abbott.

So we will never really know what went on behind those doors, even though that particular meeting affected the voting ability of each and every registered voter of Fort Bend County.

Nothing new here. It fits the transparency test of “clear as Brazos River mud” Fort Bend County government.

In they all went, slam went the doors, and then 15 minutes later J. R. Perez left in the company of a county attorney.

Rumor has it that if J.R. didn’t tender his resignation, it would have been requested. By whom no one knows, but I assume it would have been requested by County Judge Hebert, who is the common denominator between the Elections Commission and the County Court. There, at the Court, it has been a most acrimonious time with county commissioners nipping at J.R’s heels over his remarks to the news media that he had not been receiving support from the county commission.

Then came J.R.’s recommendation that the county scrap its paperless electronic voting system, the infamous product of Hart Intercivic, in favor of an optical scanning system. This, by the way, would do nothing to alleviate the predicted long lines in the primary, or even in the presidential election in November. Perez said it was far too late in the day to make changes to prevent voter angst now or then.

But now, not only do we have ill-equipped polling sites, we have a decapitated county elections office.

Karl Rove, the Republican mastermind of voter suppression, couldn’t have done any better. Thanks to poor planning by the county commission, including their opting for the expensive dial-a-vote paperless system hated by every county voter I have talked to, and the hasty appointment of a county assistant who will run things, voters can now worry, and worry well, over whether their vote is going to count.

Early voting, Fort Bend voters. Early voting is your only real hope to get your vote in and counted. Get there early if you can, too. Stories of crowded early voting locations are already beginning to surface.

What a Friend We Have in J. R.

J.R. Perez made it to the front page of FortBendNow twice today. A most startling story on the Fort Bend County Elections Administrator first appeared before noon today, disclosing Perez’ fears that there would not be enough of the Hart Intercivic “Dial-A-Vote” voting machines to service the upcoming March 4th primaries. Citing record turnouts in other states, Perez became concerned about having 40% of registered county voters actually showing up to vote in the primary.

A 40% turnout, it seems will crater our county’s voting system.

The voters, Perez has noted, are coming out to the polls in record numbers for a primary season. Democrats mainly. Democrats are most enthusiastically appearing at the polls this year in record numbers to make their wishes known – and maybe to cast a preliminary NO vote against all things Republican.

That notwithstanding, why is our county elections office under-equipped with voting machines? Have we been playing it fast and loose with past trends? Thinking that maybe the status quo is de rigueur here in Fort Bend County? Our commissioner’s court appears to be so enrapt with these high tech wonders, after all.

Now I am beginning to wonder whether that love affair that our county commissioners have had with Hart Intercivic and their abomination that they call a voting machine has all been part of a larger plan. A Karl Rove-ian- hatched plan that proposes to make it as hard as possible for citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote. Such long, long lines and waiting periods were noted all over the county during the November ’06 general election. Clearly more machines were needed just to handle a mid-term general election. Now we have the biggest primary event to come to Texas in over 50 years, and . . . oh my . . . we don’t have enough machines to go around.

But wait, there’s more.

In the afternoon, Perez met with the commissioners who were pretty disturbed over all of this, especially about Perez’ comments to a Fox News reporter that he wasn’t going to be able to get enough machines for the county, that he would need to buy paper ballots and optical scanners to make up the shortfall, and that the county commissioners would not support him. “…we gave you everything you asked for,” said Precinct 4 commissioner Patterson.

Perez replied that he “recommended in August for paper ballots. I was overruled, and so I went out and bought more equipment.”

And now, since all of that equipment will not fulfill the needs of the county voters, Perez is now proposing to scrap the entire paperless ballot system.

Can I get a big HALLELUIAH?

Yes, J.R. Perez proposes that the county sell the Hart paperless system and buy optical scanners and paper ballots. He predicts that the county should get 50 cents on the dollar for the Hart Intercivic machines (although I would take another look at that market, J.R., I suspect that you’ll find the market pretty soft for paperless ballot machines these days).

So what bodes for the primary just 3 short weeks away? Nothing good. Perez says that he will just have “to grin and bear it. And I hope people appreciate standing in line”.

No, he said that, I didn’t make it up.

Famous last words on the subject come from our Precinct 2 commissioner, Democrat Grady Prestage, who quipped:

“For the primary, you don’t have a lot of choice, just go ahead and hunker down. We were a victim of trying to rush into technology. From everything I can see, we will be back to optical scan systems.”

That is, an optical scan system with a paper trail.

This underlines what lots of us have been saying. DON’T WAIT TO CAST YOUR BALLOT UNTIL MARCH 4th!!! Early voting is for EVERYONE. Avoid the lines and confusion. Early Voting for the March 4th primary starts Tuesday February 19th and goes through Friday February 29th.

A Rat, By Any Other Name, Would Smell As Sweet

Now that 2008 is here and Texans are finally coming to the realization that the March 4th primary is just a few short weeks away, 8 to be precise, this news has finally come to those who construct the testing calendar for the Texas Education Agency.

Oh dear. TAKS testing this year is going to fall on March 4th.

So what is the big deal? What does TAKS testing and the March Primary have to do with each other? Surely these children, none of whom are 18 years of age, will have a time conflict.

It’s not the kids, it’s the facilities. Many a voter in Texas knows that if you don’t go to a church or a community center to vote in an election, you go to a public school building. And because these schools are pledged to maintain an “optimum testing situation” that includes forbidding visitors from coming on campus during a TAKS testing day, this is causing some school districts to reconsider their roles as polling sites, as seen in Tarrant County. From The Chron:

“The matter came to a head this week when the Fort Worth school district officially rejected Tarrant County's request to use 34 campuses as polling places.”

The article goes on to say that the district softened its stance by agreeing to help the county find alternative sites.

This addresses the concern of having a polling facility, but it doesn’t address the chief concern that I want to address here: voter confusion.

What is the most confusing thing that happens to a voter on Election Day? A new voting machine to learn about? Whose names are on the ballot? Where is my voter registration card?

No.

The number one source for confusion on Election Day is “Where do I vote?” This is especially true in areas that have had the same voting locations within the same precincts year after year. Voters know where to go to vote, until that location is changed. When voting locations change, voters fail to appear at the polls, especially if there is only a small window for the voter on Election Day: between the end of the work day and 7 PM.

This, by the way, is why it is so very important that every Democrat learns about Early Voting, and exercises their right to vote before Election Day. It certainly saves on confusion.

But back to the rat. It smells so sweet. Can it really be that this was all a machination to suppress the vote? By advancing the school calendar statewide, everything gets moved 2 weeks ahead. TAKS testing, normally taking place in mid-February is moved to March. There was a concerted effort on the part of the Democratic Party to move Texas’ primary day from March to February last year, but this was met with stiff resistance by Republicans backed by Lt. Gov. Dewhurst. At the time, the idea among Democrats was to make Texas’ primary more important in the national context before the presidential nomination had been all but locked up.

And it seemed reasonable that Republicans might want to go along as well, and for the same reasons.

But they didn’t.

Is this the reason why?

Voter suppression has become somewhat of an art form among the Republicans. Can it be that one of them saw this change in the school calendar, and how it would affect the location of polling places? Is this why the Republicans were so steadfast in their refusal to alter the primary calendar? They knew it would conflict with the testing calendar if unchanged?

I know this sounds paranoid, but as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said, “Even paranoids have enemies.”

Politics As Ususal in Fort Bend County, Texas

You can go from one day to the next without seeing it, but every once in awhile, here in Fort Bend County, you walk right by the snake pit that is our county government and GOP – because they’re one and the same - and they’re all down there, writhing, spitting venom, and eating each others’ young.

It’s the GOP bashing other GOPers, and it wouldn’t be so bad except that what’s going on now affects the forces of good also.

It’s all spelled out in FortBendNow. County Elections Administrator J.R. Perez wants to combine some voting precincts and eliminate voting locations, all of this in an effort to avoid spending tax dollars to buy more voting machines. That all sounds nifty, but I have a couple of points of concern.

First, they tell me that there is a lot of growth in the county. All you have to do is take a drive along the Grand Parkway or FM 762 and see the houses spring up like mushrooms after a rain. New houses mean new voters and that means you need to buy more voting machines, OK?

Second, since the county is growing, what is all this guff about elimination of 8 precincts and consolidation of 40 others? Shouldn’t it be going the other way?

But then, all you have to do is listen to who howls the loudest, and it’s comes from precinct chairs that would be eliminated: seven of the eight are on the GOP county executive committee. This represents a sizeable chunk of the committee that has been nipping at the heels of GOP county chair Gary Gillen since he was elected. One of them, Dean Hrbacek, is rumored to be considering a run against Democratic Congressman Nick Lampson next year.

So it’s not about saving taxpayer money, is it? It’s all about eliminating the opposition within the GOP.

I tell you, they think that they own this county. Well . . . maybe it’s because they do.

As pointed out in the FBN article, the howling and cries of foul essentially brought everything to a screeching halt (JR, Gary, you didn’t think they’d object?) and we’re back to square one. And now we have J.R. Perez wringing his hands, complaining that he doesn’t “have enough equipment to do a presidential election. If you add 10 new voting locations, I definitely don’t have enough equipment.”

So get some.

J.R. needs to get off the dime, stop playing with the maps, and get on the phone to Hart Intercivic, the makers of that glorious voting machine that every write-in voter loves to hate, and order up some more of those machines.

Because if you don’t have enough machines to run an election, and you know it, and are down on public record as saying it, can you spell v-o-t-e-r s-u-p-p-r-e-s-s-i-o-n?

Melissa Noriega in a Runoff, FBISD School Board Swept Clean

Well in the Melissa Noriega race for Houston City Council, there’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is that Melissa won in Fort Bend County. She garnered 216 (51.67 %) votes to her nearest competitor, Kendall Garner, who received 63 votes (15.07 %). Roy Morales, who will face Melissa in a runoff election got 24 votes in the Fort Bend County part of Houston. Unfortunately, his numbers in Harris County were a bit higher, at 6,321 (18.69 %) to Melissa’s impressive 15,729 (46.50 %). So the bad news is that Melissa Noriega did not win the race outright and will have to face one opponent in a runoff election: Rick "I will save Houston from the Terrorists" Morales.

I attended the Melissa Noriega election watch party after the polls closed (sorry forgot the camera) and listened to Melissa as she spoke to a crowd, that at times topped 200 souls, telling them that they could all go home and celebrate Mother’s Day on Sunday, but to be prepared to come back on Monday to begin again if there is a runoff.

Melissa Noriega has lots of supporters. She spoke of that over and over again in her election night speech. She likened putting your name on the ballot in an election to someone dumping a mountain of sand in your backyard, and then they give you a spoon to move the whole thing. “I can’t do this,” she said in exasperation, “but then everyone showed up holding spoons”.

Some of the more well-known politicos who showed up with their spoons were none other than Chris Bell who came within just a few percentage points (well, 9 and change) of being our governor right now, Houston Mayor Bill White, Judge Susan Criss of the 212th District court in Galveston County (rumored to be in the race for Texas Supreme Court Justice), and a couple of SDEC members that I could see. Also in attendance was Melissa Noriega’s trophy husband, State Rep. Rick Noriega.

So that’s what’s happening in Houston. Back over here in Fort Bend County we have a new school board. Bob “Anyone but Lisa” Broxson swept Lisa Rickert out of office by an impressive margin with 6,406 votes (63.58 %) to her 3,670 (36.42 %).

So long Lisa. It’s been (a) real (pain).

David Reitz, the Republican that I could not support because there was a credible Democrat on the ballot, edged out his fellow Republican, Ken Bryant by a few percentage points. None of those running in the race garnered a majority but in this race, you only need a plurality, and that was what Reitz got with a total of 3,521 votes (36.36 %) to the next higher vote getter, Bryant, whose totals were 2,936 (30.32 %).

Notable in this race was that Daniel Menendez took in 504 clueless votes. Menendez pulled out of the race in deference to Reitz. Imagine what would have happened had he stayed in. We’d be stuck with Bryant just like we are stuck with Rick Perry.

By the way, have we deported Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn yet? If not, what’s the hold-up?

And last but not least, the Fort Bend County Proposition 1 passed by 79.21% to 20.79 %. People, people, people. Do you not know that you have plopped another 156 million smackers in the hands of our kleptocratic county court? I give up. OK, someone has to watch these characters and it isn’t going to be me because I warned you. You gave them this windfall, YOU hold them accountable.

By the way, rumor has it that Judge Hebert is something like $100 poorer now due to a Texas Ethics Commission fine.

$100.

Now I could be wrong, but I think that is just the tip of the melting iceberg in what is coming.