Harris County Voting Machine Inferno: Arson Not Ruled Out

Last month when 10,000 Harris County voting machines went up in flames, along with all the ancillary equipment needed to run an eSlate polling place, my first suspicion was that someone wanted to discourage voters from casting their ballots in the mid-term elections, and torched the warehouse.

And now, nearly a month later, it seems that Harris County arson investigators have failed to find an accelerant. An accelerant is any trace of a substance, like gasoline or other flammable substances that could rapidly spread a set fire at a rate that would overwhelm any automatic fire extinguishing measures present in the building.

From KPRC:

“On Thursday, Arson Chief Gabe Cortez said they have found no evidence an accelerant, such as gasoline, was used in the fire.”

“‘We will examine some of the items recovered microscopically and with X-rays, and have electrical engineers look at those,’ Cortez said.”

Now in my brief research on the subject I have found that in any given arson investigation, when no trace of an accelerant is found at the site of a fire, the immediate diagnosis is that the fire was caused either by an electrical fault, a leak in a gas line, or “spontaneous combustion” – the latter being the rare case of combustion of a pile of organic material which is undergoing decomposition.

So absent an accelerant or multiple points of ignition, investigation of the cause of a fire shifts toward accidental.

Except in this case. In this case no accelerant has been found, yet arson has not yet been ruled out. And I have to wonder why.

Could it be the thing that keeps nagging at me? That the timing and opportunity is such an obvious factor? That who stands the most to gain in an “accident” of this nature foils any conclusion? And more to the point, if there is a rush to judgment on the cause of the fire, that it was simply an accident caused by an electrical fault, will that not raise some eyebrows in the Justice Department?

That is, if at this point the cause of a fire at a warehouse containing parts for Toyota automobiles has not yet been determined as being set deliberately with an accelerant, my guess is that the whole investigation would lead to conclude that the fault was in the wiring and the case is closed.

But burning up water pumps and ignition coils doesn’t affect an entire statewide election, does it? Harris County contains the highest number of voters, Democratic leaning voters, in the state. A fire at the warehouse containing all voting machines in the county is just a little bit more suspicious.

And really, absent the finding of the presence of an accelerant does not alone mean that the fire was due to an electrical fault. That only means that the accelerant could not be detected.

In truth, even if someone comes up with a blackened electrical junction box with melted wires in it, given the “external evidence” of motive, who stands most to gain from this fire, you will never be able to convince me that this wasn’t a purposefully set fire.

Never.

Travis County Risks Lines at the Polls for Harris County

Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir, a Democrat like all the rest of the county-wide elected officials there, has issued a warning to county voters that they should expect longer lines at the polls this upcoming election.

The reason being that Travis County went ahead and loaned Harris County some of its eSlate voting machines so that they could hold an election this fall. Because someone burned up each and every one of Harris County’s 10,000 paperless voting machines.

Now I have no problem with jumping in and sharing when a fellow County Clerk finds herself with no voting machines, because Travis County is heavily Democratic these days and Harris County is still infected with Republicans who are strongly anti-voter. Maybe they can take a slight hit in voter numbers because of their sheer numbers.

But what if this whole thing backfires? What if long lines in Travis County, a blue county, depresses turnout, and long lines in Harris County does the same? These are two of the most populous counties in Texas. I would sure hate to see that this hateful act perpetrated on Harris County voters by a vote suppression terrorist affects the Democratic turnout of not just one Democratic county, but two.

It’s a little risky, all I’m sayin’.

Houston Elects Openly Gay Mayor

Well you could have knocked me over with a feather. In a low turnout runoff election taking place in the midst of Hanukkah and the Christmas shopping season, Houston elected Annise Parker to be its next mayor. Or should I say the first openly gay woman to be its next mayor.

This, in a state that passed an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment by a whopping 76.25% (in Harris County, the vote was 72.47% For and 27.52% Against). This in a city whose voters voted down a city referendum to grant spousal benefits to city workers in 2001.

And yes, I remain ever the cynic that the results that Houston got were partly due to a low turnout election with 16.55% of registered voters even bothering to come out on a cold dreary day in mid-December to vote in a run-off election in an old-numbered year. Parker won by just over 11,000 votes in a city with nearly a million registered voters.

And while I am not a resident of Houston, I am nevertheless quite pleased with the outcome, as Houston has elected the best person for the job, and that’s good for people in my area. Living in the suburbs of Houston is much like what the Canadians say about being next to the United States – it’s like sleeping with an elephant. But I am also content with this outcome because of how supporters of Parker’s opponent, Gene Locke, went viral with their enlistment of anti-gay activists and evangelical crazies to help get out the anti-gay vote. How they went absolutely bat guano crazy in an effort to denounce Ms. Parker for her gayness. And about how Locke seemingly shrugged his shoulders helplessly at the anti-gay antics of his supporters, rejecting “any association with the style of campaigning”of these whackjobs, but refusing to denounce them.

Here is what he did say a month ago, from the Chron:

“‘If it's based solely on that one issue I've rejected them,’ Locke said when asked during a TV debate why he accepted Hotze's endorsement. ‘If it's based on looking at my record and seeing that I am the better candidate, I would accept them.’”

A statement that insults the intelligence. A statement as transparent as a pane of glass. We are judged not only by what we do, but by what we fail to do.

We really don’t need people like that in office. Not after the kind of homophobic behavior we saw in San Francisco city offices back in 1978 that resulted in the double murder of Mayor Moscone and City Commissioner Harvey Milk.

And in saying that I hope that Ms. Parker realizes that her victory yesterday is not, as the media talking heads are all saying, and indication of how things are changing in Texas. I think things are as bad as they ever were here and to prove my point I want to point to the number totals between the 2005 Harris County votes for Proposition 2, the anti-gay marriage amendment, and the 2009 Harris County votes for Annise Parker.

Parker netted a total of 81,743 votes in the election yesterday.

Total Harris County voters who voted against Proposition 2? 89,652.

And no, I don’t believe in coincidences.

The Inside Man

Oh, this is timely. I just had a dental procedure today and I am not up to my usual drollery. The Lone Star Project, however, has bailed me out.

They just put up on You Tube a short movie about the scandalous behavior of Harris County Tax Assessor Collector Leo Vasquez (although I am betting that former Tax Collector Paul Bettencourt has his dirty little hands in this, too), who harbors an “Inside Man” in protecting Associate Voter Registrar Ed Johnson.

Johnson is actually a Republican paid political consultant who works for State Rep Duane Bohac’s political consulting company Campaign Data Systems, previously blogged on here a month ago.

He is directly responsible for 83,000 Harris County voters not being able to vote last November.

And very probably responsible for the election of several of his clients through his work as “The Inside Man” at the Harris County registrar’s office.

You just can’s miss this, it makes the case for voter suppression (and even voter fraud) so well to a dark and ominous music score, you have to see it.

So here it is embedded below.

Republicans Looking For an Edwards Echo Should Worry About What They Ask For

Harris County Republican Party Chairman Jared Woodfill lost no time jumping all over John Edwards’ personal problems as he gleefully called on Harris County Democrats to “withdraw the invitation for Edwards to speak” at the upcoming Johnson-Rayburn-Richards dinner. It’s all found right here in The Chron.

Unbeknownst to Chairman Woodfill, Senator Edwards had already sent word, had already cancelled his appearance at the dinner.

Not to worry. Woodfill simply went to item two on his political agenda. Money.

With Republicans Money is either 1st or 2nd on their lists of things to do.

Then Woodfill introduced the notion that perhaps all of Texas’ Democratic candidates should return any and all cash donations ever made to them by Dallas lawyer and Democratic benefactor Fred Baron.

The reason? Woodfill delivered the nebulous notion that Fred Baron had provided John Edwards “hush money” in paying moving expenses for the bimbo videographer who was being harassed by a tabloid.

Woodfill now calls all money provided by Fred Baron “tainted.”

Now I don’t know what specifically went on that convinced Fred Baron to help this woman move, and I really don’t care. I really don’t understand the logic of calling all of Baron’s contributions “tainted” no matter who they were given to, or what they were for, just because someone has raised an issue about this one exchange.

If Baron gave, say, $10,000 to say, a hospital, say MD Anderson, say in 2006. Would the hospital be obliged to return it now?

That’s just nuts.

But that aside, the absence of logic aside, I think that Jared Woodfill doesn’t want to open up this Pandora’s Box.

Where, oh where to begin? How about Abramoff/DeLay? What about all the hundreds of thousands of dollars funneled through one PAC or another, some say illegally, to Texas Republicans across the state from this discredited congressman and that jailbird? Some of these funds have actually been returned.

But not all.

What about all of the campaign funds donated over the years by Texas homebuilder Bob Perry? Perry has sent funds to Republicans and Republican causes (Swift Boat Veterans for Truth). Yet now we find that the fine Republican family values of this individual closely resemble that of a drunken, wife-abusing nasty piece of work.

But I haven’t heard anyone say that Republicans should return all of Bob Perry’s campaign contributions.

But come to think of it, if Woodfill’s logic is rock-solid, maybe it’s time someone did.

What’s good for the goose is certainly good enough for the gander isn’t it?

Or maybe, just maybe, Chairman Woodfill needs to reconsider this and not go there.

No, I don’t expect Chairman Woodfill to display any kind of moral decorum as the Edwards family struggles through this crisis. Republicans say that they are a people with “family values,” but maybe not all of them. I expect Woodfill to behave as neocon Republicans do, with cold, cruel calculation, using anything, ANYthing, to destroy a family while it is in pain.

And I also expect Woodfill to be cognizant of the fact that what he asks for may just be asked back at him in response.

Cowardly self-interest is a right-wing Republican trait. Maybe he should think about this a little more.