Travis County Commissioners Court
September 2, 2008
Items 23 and 24
23. Consider and take appropriate action regarding an order to designate election day polling places for the November 4, 2008 joint general and special elections. 23? Good morning, judge and economics, dana debeauvoir, Travis County clerk.
>> good morning, dana.
>> hi. I hope everybody had a nice holiday. What I would like to do today is get through as much of the election day early voting and the early voting schedule as we can. I will ask to not approve mobile today. I've still got a few more things I'm investigate on that. So I would -- I'm vetting on that, I would like to bring that back to you next week for a final-final. The -- I think the first thing that I want to let you know about is the plan includes two mega sites. One north at the --
>> should I call 24 -- I called 23.
>> I'm sorry, I thought it was 23.
>> sorry.
>> can we take 23 or do we need to take them together? I called 24.
>> we will do election day first, sorry. I didn't have an agenda in front of me.
>> well let's just do both of them, how is that?
24. Consider and take appropriate action regarding an order to designate the main early voting polling place, early voting permanent polling places and early voting mobile polling places for the November 4, 2008 joint general and special elections. Now we have it all.
>> thank you, judge.
>> all right. The -- let me go back then, the first thing that I would say that is really different this time around, we always strive for consistency between our polling places, including the mobile ones that people have grown accustomed to, as well as election day. But there are always changes. The -- the couple of big changes that we have this time, the court has authorized us and we have located two sites for early voting that are what we're going to call mega centers or mega sites. These will have about oh, gosh 30, 40, as many booths as we can manage inside them. So that we'll have a high volume place for voters to go. So that some of our early voting locations, if they get long lines or get kind of overrun with the crowds, we will have opportunities to direct voters to go to either the next closest center or one of these mega centers. Okay. Let me start by saying that -- that I really do believe we are going to have this really incredible unprecedented turnout. I think that it's going to feel wonderful. And I think that it's going to be exciting. I just think that -- that it's -- that it's up to our office to do everything that we can to take care of the voters once they get to the polling place and we anticipate that those voters are going to not only be in large numbers, but that we're going to have a lot of new voters who have never voted before, young voters. And we're going to have a lot of people who return because they really participate in the presidential cycle. We are going to see some of that normal trend of turnout, rather, then I think that we're going to see on top of that lots and lots of people. I think they are going to be excited. Typically just to give you an idea about how this works, the -- usually what happens is we double or sometimes even triple the primaries. If you look at the primary before and you can kind of predict what you think the turnout is going to be for -- for the November elections. That is what we've done I think -- I think the highest that we've ever had was in 2004, we had 355,000 voters come out, a little over 64%. We're thinking this time around closer to an 80%. And one of the things that we are really hoping for is that our voters will take advantage of early voting. I think that it is going to be one of those community efforts to get us all through as comfortably and as quickly as possible that we are all going to have to work together. Find a time to go do early voting because what we're trying to do is spread out the -- the turnout of voters throughout the early voting and election day period as much as possible, so they won't pile up, perhaps, at the end of election day. We tend to have this pattern in -- in Travis County of voters waiting until after about 3:30 or 4:00 on the day of election day and while we certainly are, you know, people are welcome to do that, that's likely to be the time when you are going to see the very heaviest and the longest lines. We don't want anybody to feel discouraged, that they shouldn't go to vote because they think they are going to run into a line. We're going to do everything possible between now and then to make sure that we move everybody through as quickly as possible. No matter where they are voting or on what day. But keep in mind that early voting is a definite option for people this time around. One of my notes here says we may be able to get 50 booths in at least one if not both of the mega centers. All right. I have asked you to please let me finish working on the mobile program next week. Now, I have a couple of things that I need to let you know about, if we could move on to -- well, before we leave that, at a lot of these locations what we're going to do is beef up using it is mobile program, beef up the extra -- the extra resources that are available to voters at our early voting locations, especially for the last three days of early voting when the crowds really do tend to swell. And the mega sites will offer extended voting up until 9:00 p.m., we will do our very best to get that word out to people that they've got opportunities, you know, for even late hours voting. Okay. There are 24 early voting sites distributed throughout Travis County. Y'all are -- y'all are the ultimate authors seven probably the most early voting sites of any county in the state. Can we approve these 24 yet.
>> yes, sir, that would be great.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> this list of early voting locations. It's ready.
>> does that include the mega sites also as well?
>> it should say extended hours at the top and yes, sir it includes the two mega sites.
>> let me ask this question, dana.
>> [indiscernible], is it open for discussion?
>> yes, sir.
>> okay. Thank you. The mega sites per se, I guess people, folks that are listening to us and hearing us now, just verbally, can you tell us where these two mega sites are located? That's new terminology, I have never heard of mega site and a lot of other folks probably have never heard mega voting, early voting site either. So it's kind of intriguing I guess.
>> thank you, Commissioner, what on earth is a mega site. We have early voting locations throughout Travis County. Travis County has a long-time history of about 20 years of offering early voting in as retail, a location as we can find. We tends to put our ballots up front out where people already are. Rather than the older approach of putting polling places like in the back of a government building or something like that. We really try to make sure that we get out to the high pedestrian areas, literally we want voters to run into the polling places, yes I can take care of this right now. The mega sites are extra because we anticipate for this presidential election we're going to see such a huge turnout that we really felt like we needed to have something bigger to offer people, better parking and more capacity because some of our most favorite and highest turnout locations are grocery stores. They are kind of on the small side, they really can accommodate just so many. We are incredibly grateful to all of our merchants for allowing us on to their property. We don't want to overwhelm them or frustrate voters either. What we did was we opened up one extra large center north and one extra large center south. The one north is next to the county annex or the county series of buildings out at 5501 airport boulevard. The mega center will be in the new county building, it's what used to be the old chair king. There's lots of good parking. It will be a great opportunity for people to come and vote quickly. The other one is south and it is on the east side of mopac. South of westgate. It's the -- it's across westgate street from the westgate theater in the westgate tower shopping center. If you know the pet bird hospital. It's next door to that. Also a chinese buffet sign. It will be in that area with signage, another place where we will have a whole bunch of booths and good parking so that people south of the river will have an opportunity for a mega site. Two mega sites with extra hours and we will do what we can to beef up the support especially last week to two days of early voting locations for all of the other locations as well. Hopefully that will tell everybody what a mega site is. We hope to show people how convenient it will be. The other thing that we would encourage voters to do before they go to vote for early voting. We are really going to encourage people to vote early, take a look at your ballot first. It isn't just presidents. There are a lot of other offices down the ballot. We don't want people to be surprised thinking as they go in they are uppermost the president, but then there's the whole rest of the ballot, too. If you can be efficient in your use of the time that you spend in the voting booth, then you've just done a favor to the voter who is standing behind you in line. So we want you to take your time and make your choices carefully, but also keep in mind that if you are already prepared it's will go more quick flow everyone.
>> the sample -- more quickly for everyone.
>> sample ballots on line at the county clerk's website?
>> yes, sample ballots available just as quickly as we get them certified. Very quickly, yes they will be available and we will have them at all of the early voting locations as well. So you will be able to -- if in your a 10 minute line, you have forgotten to bring your favorite novel, study your ballot or hopefully you have already done it at the kitchen table before you left the house. Now --
>> any more discussion of the motion covering early voting sites?
>> yes. Dana, in order to do the mega sites, do you have to have the new machines?
>> yes, sir.
>> okay. Then that's a problem that I have. I'm sorry that I was not here last week and let me say this is certainly not an indictment to you or your staff. I mean I think that you all have done everything humanly possible for us to -- to let the people of this community know that we are as comfortable as we can be. That being said, I don't know that there is a person on this earth that doesn't think that -- that there is at least the potential of something happening with the electronic voting. We know that.
>> we must think that way.
>> yes.
>> and there is more than ample proof to show that that can be the case. Whether that's being done here or not, I don't know. I hope not. But I know that you all have worked as hard as you can. I mean, I have to take exception to the mega site, not because I don't think that they are going to be -- going to be convenient. And I think they are going to be very beneficial to people. But I'm really conflicted here because I don't think that we should have bought the other machines with -- with where we are. That being said I just wanted that -- I wanted you to know that so whenever I vote on this it has nothing to do with whether or not the mega sites aren't going to be beneficial to this community because I think that they are. But given the fact that that is the case and that we do need the extra machines in order to operate, you know, the mega sites, then that's -- I just wanted that --
>> but listen dana, let me say this to you. Of course we ending up funding an additional 33 voting machines. By doing so, that was in anticipation of -- of the higher voter turnout that you expect to happen this coming elections. So -- so in your estimate what would be the expected increase in voter population here in Travis County that will accommodate the court support of purchasing the additional 33 machines?
>> all right. My best guess and of course there are pundits who are better at me than this, but we have to do it so early in the process, my best guess is that we will really see an 80% turnout in Travis County.
>> how much are you saying?
>> 80%. Totally reasonable to expect that. We think if -- we believe that about half of our voters will vote early, we're hoping a little more than that will vote early because 80% translates to approximately 440,000 registered voters voting both early voting and election day. If half vote early voting then we still have 220,000, approximately, people to get through our -- I think it's 211 polling places for election day. We just want that to go as smoothly as possible. Obviously there's more opportunity and longer days and hours to vote for early voting. If we could get 60% of our folks to vote early that takes the pressure off of the lines that might be forming on election day. And we want it to be -- people are expecting a 15 or 20 minute line everywhere. We will see those throughout the day all day long. But what we don't want to have to do is to have people standing in line so long that they are uncomfortable, either because of ability or age or just, you know, we're tired and we got families and jobs and we got places to be and, you know, standing in line for a long time is -- it's not convenient and it might make people leave. So by -- by trying to encourage people to vote early, what we're hoping is that we will make early voting very convenient for people and take some of the pressure off election day. I really do think this is going to be happily just the most fantastic thing that we can -- we have ever seen. I really think when you go out and talk to folks at the grocery stores, malls, farmers markets. They are excited about it. Palpable, you can feel it in the air. I think it could be a wonderful, wonderful time. Especially for our brand new voters.
>> any more discussion of the motion? All in favor? Show Commissioners Gomez, Davis, eckhardt and yours truly voting in favor. Voting against Commissioner Daugherty.
>> thank you,.
>> can we go to item 23?
>> yes, sir.
>> did we finish 24? That motion only the covered early locations.
>> just the early voting locations to make it clear to everybody, judge. I would like to return with mobile next Tuesday.
>> that's fine.
>> okay, thank you. All right. Election day. The Austin independent school district asked us to look at a few locations where our polling place was in an elementary school. There is a growing concern that -- that voters mixed in with very small children at very small often highly crowded elementary schools becomes a security issue. And we've -- this is a growing concern over the years, certainly throughout the state of Texas. So when this -- when the school asks us can we do things to separate the voters and the kids and the answer is always yes, let's find ways to do that. So we have been working on a plan with -- with aisd and with our election judges and precinct chairs to find good solutions where we think that we can make improvements, especially in the elementary schools. So I have a couple of items that he would like to call to your attention, a couple of items that I would like to continue verifying with the community before we take a final vote on them. I will make them clear what they are. It's a short list here. Pnlt 151, when elementary school is their normal polling place, we are all suggesting we move right across the street to the northeast health clinic. We won't have the issue of parking and the kids. We will have parking. It should be a nice location, we have always used that health clinic for early voting so it's familiar with the communities out there.
>> h.e.b. Shopping --
>> [indiscernible]
>> is that -- yes it is.
>> right at h.e.b. All right. Precinct 2, precinct 236, even though we have -- we have considered some other options we are going to go ahead and remain at rosedale elementary school in precinct 239 we have considered some other options and made some special accommodations in order to -- to keep the children separate and we're going to remain at gullet elementary school, however we will be in the gym. So it's not -- it's a nice separation between the two of us. We really appreciate the school helping us in cases where we simply couldn't find a better location. We still want to be as respectful as we can of not disrupting the kids and their place of business there. They have got a job to do there that day. In precinct 243 the former lucy reed elementary school can in fact move down the street to the ben hur location, ben hur is of course where we do early voting. Those folks will just return on election day. I would like to talk about precinct 3 -- from patton elementary school to small middle school. They are very near each other. We are still really weighing whether the community will supports that or not. Precinct 351 patton.
>> also, 224 -- I have for the forgotten it. Last on my list, we will take it now. I would like one more week on that one. This one is a tough call because both are -- both have pros and cons.
>> right.
>> I will tell you that the -- even though I'm getting mixed messages from the community and they are also sort of not entirely sure which is the best, we are leaning towards the tax office moving away from timberman elementary school for the tax office for the reasons we discussed before about the issue with elementary schools. I would really like to con that with a few more people.
>> that would be great. I would appreciate it.
>> all right. In precinct 410, pleasant hill elementary school is going to move to the aisd resource center. This is really nothing but a name change. That's a -- for folks out there, same building that's going to be in the different part separate from the kids. In 422, we have been asked to move away from Travis County heights elementary school to fulmore middle school. I think that is a good solution. That seems the community supports that. So I believe that we will be voting at fulmore elementary
>> [sic] they will keep us aparts from the kids, their parking is better.
>> that's middle.
>> middle, what did I say?
>> elementary school.
>> fulmore middle school. I used to teach there. Mull mullah mohammad -- fulmore.
>> the request to move from joycelyn elementary school to burger center, we would like to give it more thought and return next week. I'm still weighing whether or not that's a good idea. Another move that is -- that I hope that you can -- you can confirm today is jester to flawn academic center. They want to move the election day polling place to the same place for early voting. Seems that is a more central location for everyone there. And since the jester was combined east and west was combined, this actually looks like a better idea and everybody at the campus level seems to support this. We're going to continue to vote at flawn academic instead of moving it over to jester. There's another that I am checking on. Instead of voting at alison elementary school, that we vote at montopolis recreation center. We had started talks about that, somehow we never finished it so we're going to go back and double check it to see what the community thinks and does that look like a good idea. Other than the ones that I have mentioned, 351, 454, 224, and montopolis, I have forgotten what the number is on that one, everything else can be approved for election day and is ready to go for you and if you would like to know any of the reasons why, any of these election day polling places were changed I would be happy to tell you. Let me just add that when we are in a situation where we do have to change a polling place and it happens every election, we send out post cards to the people that are involved, we do notices at the old location directing people to the new one, we do instruction to the new location saying yes, this is you, I used our media partners newspapers, websites, neighborhood association websites. We try everything we can to get through to the kids I mean the voters and aisd has been particularly helpful this time around and offering to send home e-mail blasts and notes with students and send out information through the p.t.a. That will help us get the word out to to the whole community when we have a change in a particular area that involves one of these elementary schools.
>> why wouldn't it -- why wouldn't it make more sense for us to wait and approve the final list after giving residents an opportunity to respond?
>> well, because -- certainly if the court chooses to confirm the entire list next week we are comfortable with that. Judge, it gives us just one more week ahead of the game to get everything in place for the ones that are not in question and to get -- if there is going to be a change because --
>> I understand no objection is going from us. Objections will come from the residents -- when you say community I guess that you mean people who routinely vote at different locations.
>> yes, sir.
>> I guess that I would feel a whole lot better approving a final list after giving whoever you plan to notify an opportunity to respond. To make it months more sense than approving -- it makes more sense in approving than list --
>> if the court feels more comfortable, the four or five that we have left. We can certainly keep working on those. Everything else is stable you can vote all next week if you like or do the part that's already finished and we will bring back the fourth or five that we need extra work on. I am do it either way the court pleases.
>> residents don't like us to take action and then notify them and tell them they have an opportunity to provide input because they don't. If it's after the fact input is not real. So unless harm is done, it would make more sense to me to delay action at least another week. Or so.
>> that is fine with us. All the more reason to get the word out. Better.
>> it sounds like dana is asking given the fact that we have 98% of these that will be no problem.
>> right.
>> what we're talking about is trying to move this whole system along which is the reason we're talking about mega centers, everything in the workload that you all have, I don't really understand why we wouldn't go ahead and tell dana the 98% that had no questions, it gives you another week to get that done. That's really what you are asking.
>> that is really what I'm asking. But we are amenable to the court and to voters if they would like one more week of notice about where their polling places are going to be.
>> I don't have a problem with the judge's motion. I just wanted to make sure I want missing something. Sounds -- that I want missing something.
>> we -- I wasn't missing something.
>> 90% we have used historically, the approve of them is a formality. It's the new ones that may cause a problem.
>>
>> [indiscernible] very, very accurate. I'm saying this from experience as far as we having to explain after the fact why we done something.
>> sure.
>> and it's -- a little more cumbersome. To do it that way. In my opinion. And -- and I remember we -- the example when we merged the precincts, for example, doing stuff like that. We got a lot of calls.
>> sure.
>> after the fact.
>> right. So -- I think it will be more appropriate. Will one week delay hinder you.
>> here's who is going to say what?!! About what's going on. Until the list is finalized I can't do any kind of advertising, I can't put it up on the website. The campaigns and all of the people who are trying to get organized are wanting this information as soon as possible. It's that group of people who would appreciate, you know, moving forward with it. We all weigh and balance what people need. If you would like to wait we can do that, I can't put it up on the website until we are voted.
>> unless you want to go ahead and put it up on the website.
>> as unvoted?
>> 98% that we historically won't change.
>> they really won't. They really won't. We have a few changes.
>> put 'em up.
>> I will just have to be sure and say on there these are the proposed ones.
>> all right. I think we have a way to work it out.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> it might create confusion when people search the minutes of the clerk's records, two orders, it might create confusion in that respect. The order will look the same, the attachment will be different. I wonder if you might want to avoid that sort of confusion by doing it all next week with the finalized list.
>> it is a good point. The people that are wanting us to hurry up is one group of people. That's a good points.
>> the handful that we may have changes to, you are saying then this next week we will get signoff from precinct judges from all of the officials that will have something to do, some official job to get done, you will need to get a signoff. Let's say that you came to one of these precinct judges and they said we just don't think that's a good idea. What's your -- what would be y'all's offices response?
>> oh -- I trust you, I have worked so well with you you all have worked so well with me, sometimes you have a very good reason why you are asking us, maybe I don't agree with you on everything, but I do understand that it's generally either traffic or -- there is resistance from the schools about trying to do this, particularly at some of the schools, what's the answer to that?
>> a lot of the schools are just wonderful, they welcome us, these principals are fabulous, had he he they want to show democracy to the kids. Some of them are rather poorly designed, this time around the crowds are going to be so huge we don't want to get them overwhelmed with just this one kind of election. The ones that needed investigate, further investigation, were this handsful of ones that we had been checking outs. There's -- we have a pretty good consensus on all of these from the folks that we have talked to, except the three that I mentioned where I really kind of have a -- some people saying it's okay, it's -- I wouldn't call it wishy-washy people could go either way with it. They are trying to decide. Before I jump in and say definitely let's do it this way, I want to ask a few more people. You do learn things. Like there may be some accommodation that can be provided at an elementary school so that people can keep that old location and still give the school comfort in knowing that its security measures are taken care of. There's really only a few that are in question, Commissioner Daugherty.
>> I guess given the request to hold up a little bit, I can respect. I don't have any problem with what's being presenced here on the change that I see here basically affecting precinct 1, wynn elementary school, of course they are going right across the street at the community health clinic which is probably a lot better off because of the parking and everything else, it's a much better --
>> [multiple voices]
>> very little controversy.
>> you have parking galore there, it's nothing but a plus in any particular regard. But out of respect for what I am hearing, there may need to be some input and I respect that. Everybody seemed to like that idea.
>> anything else that we need to do today.
>> no. No, sir. I -- we are just as a note for our internal business, we're going to be hiring obviously a lot of people to take care of these locations. We are working with h.r. And the auditor to assure smooth transitions, coding systems that tells us whether you are working election day or early voting, working early voting, a little administrative level that I appreciate the cooperation between the auditor and h.r. For this. It's complicated. I wanted you to be aware of that.
>> okay.
>> it helps us with our billing later on. That's a good thing.
>> thank you very much.
>> okay.
>> thank you, dana.
>> all done? Finished? Thank you.
>> thank you, dana. Do we have facilities coming on the -- on the cscd item? Okay, let's take up 2 b then okay, let's take the cscd item, then we will -- that's 6.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 2, 2008 8:37 AM