Travis County Commissioners Court
September 13, 2005
Item 1
But number 1 is a public hearing. 1. Receive comments regarding proposed election precinct realignments pursuant to section 42.031 (b)(3) of the election code.
>> move to open the public hearing.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> good morning.
>> good morning. Dolores lopez voter registration division. To my left, melinda the supervisor of our program, gale fisher, elections division manager and kim [indiscernible] elections coordinate nirt. We were here two -- coordinator. We were here two weeks ago to inform you about the possible changes in precinct boundary lines, we ask for a public hearing today so that you could hear public testimony from election officials or election precinct judges, the community in general. What we have before you, essentially, is a -- an outcome of an inspection of every single polling place in Travis County for election day sites. Elections division did an outstanding job of inspecting every single location and came up with the large lest that you have in -- list that you have in front of you, the legal documents, showing our recommendation to combine precincts that have polling place problems. And essentially what we are looking at is accessibility, traffic concerns, safety concerns in the area, and availability of polling sites. What you have before you is a combination of -- of those precincts. The -- just to share with you, the precincts to combine the precincts on the left-hand side of the document will go away. And those precincts will be combined with the receiving precinct, the number of precinct on the receiving side will stay. So what ends up happening is we lose essentially or we abolish 49 precincts by putting them together. All of this would be in effect January 1, 2006. We also have four brand new precincts that you approved earlier this year. So then we'll have a total combination of precincts, January 1, 2006, of 216 precincts. Today, we have 261. So you can see the difference of removing 49, adding four, we have a total of 216. We --
>> [indiscernible]
>> cost savings, including our -- the payment to the judges, rental fees, and support of those places could be 90,000 plus dollars per election.
>> per election?
>> yes.
>> on top of that, we have come before you in budget to ask for an additional $55,000 for -- for equipment and the previous realignment where we are going to add more precincts, that $55,000 request would go away.
>> let me ask that -- another question because I’ve had some comments on some of the mergers of these precincts. If we look at 128, 126, the one that's leaving from -- from david baptist church and going to the new [indiscernible] givens recreation center. There was -- there's another location just north of david chapel church, I guess on alamo, I guess, maybe in the 2200 block. Alamo recreation, they do have a display of -- of dealing with excess as far as handicapped, owned by the city of Austin. Was that into -- dealing with act. Was that looked into before you made the change of this particular merger with those two precincts.
>> we did not look at that site?
>> you didn't look at the site?
>> I spoke to them --
>> come up here, please.
>> this is ken treadway the site coordinator.
>> well, let him speak. Thank you. Thank you, ken.
>> pull that mic toward you, if you would.
>> ken treadway, site coordinator for the Travis County clerk's office, I visited with the alamo center and spoke with the director there. She was willing for us to use that site, the problems are it has very little parking, it's all curb side parking, whereas givens has more parking for voters. It has narrow passageways inside. They do accommodate people in the neighborhood with mobility problems. But if you are going by the letter of the law, it does have some technical problems whereas gibbons, especially with the new remodeling that they are undergoing now will be in much better shape in January.
>> with the remodeling.
>> yes, they are under construction right now. But by -- supposed to be done by January and our first election will be March.
>> okay. Just speaking of -- -- wanting to address this as far as hardship is concerned, maybe we can revisit this sometime in the future, I don't really know. But I do know that the airport boundary line that separates precinct 126 and 128 is probably going to be a challenge. I guess there's going to be challenges through all of what we are doing here. That's not the only challenge that we have to deal with. I think combined we have several challenges. We have to bring that point since it was brought to my attention, I wanted to make sure that there had been -- an avenue whereby we would maybe be able to obtain the -- the alamo recreation site and -- the modification changes, are the modification changes will address accommodation for a precinct [indiscernible]
>> well, it was the gibbons center that's under remodeling, I don't know of any plans to change the alamo center.
>> okay. Because I am really feeling some tension I guess as far as the traditional voapght precinct at david chapel baptist church there on chestnut and martin luther king, jr.
>> it's unfortunate that we can't use it because it is -- we do have accessibility concerns there.
>> I understand.
>> but what we can do in the future, we can look for new polling sites within the boundaries of the precinct at any time. What we are doing is modifying some of the boundary lines, this is the only time that we can do it. But even during the year, if there's another accessible polling site, we can certainly move it.
>> that's the direction that I’m trying to lean into because that -- that is something that I think that we need to maybe --
>> Commissioners and judge, I just want to let you know that the Texas election code doesn't say you should have accessible polling places. It says you shall. And our goal is to be 100% compliant by 2006.
>> one other note about the public hearing, we did post notices in the newspaper two Sundays in a row. We did send letters to all of the precinct judges, precinct chairs, the neighborhood organizations that were affected by this. The jurisdictions, the elected officials. We try to do a -- a big all-out campaign to let people know that we were going to do this today. We did receive some concerns by phone and most of them were from precinct judges that didn't want to give up their precincts. They weren't about the accessibility issues. And I just want to mention to you that -- that we would like to have you -- have you approve this either all or part today. So that we can continue with our -- with our short time lines to get this to the justice depend by the end of this month and be able to send certificates to all voters by December. So -- so we -- we urge you to -- to bring up item 34 as soon as the public hearing is over.
>> we do have plans to try to minimize the effect on the voter. We are going to do an outreach where we will send notice to every voter whose polling location is going to change. With their voter registration cards and we are trying to choose locations that are in -- in close proximity to each other. I think in all but two cases we are within two miles of the previous location. Many are just across the street from each other. And we are trying to go from private to public places so -- so in some of these places if there's a church and they have an event, we can't use the place. So we are going to public locations where, you know, according to the law they do want us to pick public over private and it is because of these issues of stability. Where we can use the same place every election so that the voters know where to go.
>> if I may just -- just mention about the certificates, we traditionally do send every single person who has a polling place change a notice. A separate notice with the certificate inside an envelope. Traditionally, we have done that. I haven't quite had this large of a number in the past. What we will do today with -- if you approve all of the recommendations here, plus the ones that you approved in April, there will be about 92,000 notices that will send -- we'll send separately from the certificates. The postal cost will be an additional $50,000. That's something that I would like to get direction from you, if you would like for me to do that. Or we would be glad to do it. In fact we encourage it because voters do need to know that their polling sites have changed for large election coming up. So that's an item that I will need your direction on as well.
>> but this won't go into effect until January.
>> January 12006. Our objective is to get everybody a certificate in hand by the end of this year with the notice.
>> all right.
>> would anyone like to give testimony during this public hearing.
>> I would.
>> if so, please come forward.
>> judge, let me ask --
>> okay.
>> if you would come forward, have a seat, give us your full name, we would be happy to get your comments.
>> steve, before you leave, a couple of things. Tell me the early voting percentages roughly, can you give me an average of like over the last six years? I mean --
>> sure. I can give you the most recent, which was the -- the presidential election. We had a -- between 06 and 70 -- 60 and 70% turnout at most of these precincts vote early. So we do have a larger population as time goes, more and more voting early every single election. For the precinct 3 precincts, back in April that we -- that we looked at, some of them were even in the high 70s. So we have a large number of people coming out and voting during the early voting period.
>> we have seen that increase, you know, each year. Another thing that I want to make sure of is that polling locations can be changed. Can we change them each year? If we find that we have real complications with prime nearly or something in '06, then we don't -- we are not locked into that for two years.
>> absolutely not. You can change them whenever there are issues related to accessibility or suitability of polling locations.
>> even within the same year? So if like the primary, you said boy this was a real mess, I mean, for the general election, we are going to try to get something out because that -- we thought it was going to work, but it's not, so if problems do arise, we have the ability to adjust.
>> exactly. Once again we send each voter in the precinct a note saying that their polling place has changed.
>> okay. Thanks.
>> just one quick item, Commissioner Daugherty and court, when-- in the past we haven't been bringing them to you more than once every two years. Because we had a cap of the number of registered voters per precinct, house bill 2309 allows us to increase that to 5,000, that was effective this month. So with that allows us a little more flexibility in bringing these issues to you. Election code 42.031 allows us to look at these suitedability issues at any time.
>> okay. We are posted to receive comments. We would like to receive comments during these items, please come forward right now.
>> good morning.
>> good morning, laurie o'leary, precinct 234.
>> precinct 244.
>> I -- I’m not arguing the accessibility. My only concern is that during redistricting, two -- precinct 244 and 242 used to be 244. And it was realigned. Now here we are three years later, now you want to put 244, with 235, which is on the other side of the precinct line. So I guess I’m kind of wondering why we didn't put 244 back with 242 to create precinct 244 again.
>> would the person with the answer to that question please come forward.
>> that's also part of another merger, because I’m 245 and we are moving into 242. So I think that's part of it is that that would be a combining of three precincts into the same location.
>> well, I think that you need to understand, also, that the -- the geography. You are asking a lot of elderly people that live at precinct 244 to cross a major thoroughfare, ie koenig lane. Where if they kept the neighborhood integrity there wouldn't be the necessity of crossing that major highway.
>> that is a good question, in terms of the flat numbers, we can fit it in and be about a 4100 polling precinct to combine -- because 245 already is moving across the street to 242. And then if you add in the 1325, we are still well under the 5,000 cap.
>> [indiscernible]
>> we will need you on the mic. The question really is whether we can do what's recommended.
>> within the 242, along with --
>> when we looked at the voter registration counts, we worked with voter registration and even though the maximum is at 5,000, we looked at trying not to go over about 3500 because you understand the populations fluctuate and they need somewhat of a cushion for people to come in and leave the precinct. They didn't want to have to cut it in half every time they got close to 5,000, this would allow them some room. When we looked at combining, we looked at combining and keeping the population at about 3500. So that's what the combination of 245 and 242 does, which doesn't make it eligible to then go down to 244 was the initial thinking. And then those two polling places for both 245 and 242 are directly across the street from each other, as you mentioned, so it's not a huge shift for the voters to go to a whole new location.
>> but if somebody lives in crestview in terms of how it feels, there's a definite difference in terms of having northwest come just down the block to -- to the methodist church as opposed to, you're right, there is a feel in terms of crossing over koenig lane and having to get over to the eye school, which is -- to the high school, just a different feel, a different set up, I think if there's any way to accommodate them into 242 -- it keeps crestview and part of brentwood altogether.
>> I guess originally why it wasn't 244 and 242 put back together.
>> because we have polling place accessibility concerns with 245?
>> 44.
>> 244.
>> we would just go back into 242, what we were three years ago. We have been telling voters for three years, go down the street, go down the street, the redistricting line changed.
>> [indiscernible]
>> it's all the same people in terms of same state rep, same everything.
>> right, exactly.
>> how easy is it to make the change?
>> we would have to resubmit, correct, cruel lee? At we would do, if the court doesn't want to approve that change for this week --
>> we can modify it right now.
>> so -- are you in agreement that it makes sense to make the change?
>> absolutely.
>> would it include 245 or just 244 and 242?
>> it has to include 245 because we have serious a.d.a. Issues at my usual polling place that is going away.
>> 244, 242, 245.
>> which makes sense, a lot of us all vote early so we are not showing up there anyway.
>> can somebody put that change in writing? So I can have it when we call up the action item? Now, any other comments during this public hearing?
>> thank you.
>> okay. Would anyone else like to give testimony during the public hearing in item no. 1? Seeing none --
>> move to close the public hearing.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. We will call up action item no. 34 real soon.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, September 14, 2005 9:23 AM