Travis County Commissioners Court
October 21, 2008
Executive Session
>> now, let's take a-2 into executive session under consultation with attorney, consider, offer and quit claim deed from gdf realty investment, park properties 1 lp and park properties 2 lp to benefit balance conies canyon land preserve at no cost to Travis County and take appropriate action. I think I understood from the backup what this is about, but we may as well hear our lawyers explain I it. That's consultation with attorney exception. 28, receive briefing from county attorney and take appropriate action concerning extension of assistive leave without pay for human resources management department employee slot number 2. Consultation with attorney and personnel matters exceptions. 9, receive legal briefing and take appropriate action regarding contract for third party administration of Travis County section 457 deferred compensation plan with nationwide retirement solutions. Consultation with attorney exception. 30, receive status report and take appropriate action regarding issues related to contract between Travis County and Austin-Travis County livestock show and claims resulting from the 2008 star of Texas fair and rodeo. Consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. And number 31 is to consider and take appropriate action regarding the potential lease between harry m. Whittington, dba travis properties, and Travis County, Texas. Consultation with attorney and real property exceptions to the open meetings act. We'll discuss these items in executive session but will come back to open court before taking any action.
>> we have returned from executive session with we discussed a-2, the matter involving the d.d.f. Realty investment limited and park properties 1 and 2 and the need for a quit claim deed at no cost to the county. I move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Item 28 is the matter involving administrative leave with pay for human resources management employee slot number 2. Is there a motion? Number 29 is a matter involving the 457 deferred compensation plan with nationwide retirement solutions. We did get an update, have some legal questions answered. We'll have this back on the court's agenda next week for followup discussion. Following our conversation with some of the top officials of nationwide retirement solutions, conversations which are supposed to take place later this week. In my view no further action on that item today.
>> right.
>> number 30 is the matter involving our discussions with the Travis County livestock show and claims resulting from the 2008 star of Texas fair and rodeo. I move that we reurge our request to settle 2008 claims for the sum of $100,000 and indicate our interest in sitting with the representatives from the livestock association tom try to negotiate the other four or five points of disagreement.
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor? Show Commissioners eckhardt, Gomez and yours truly voting in favor. Voting against Commissioner Daugherty and Davis. Number 31 is a matter involving a potential lease between harry m. Whittington and Travis County, specifically to property located at 209 west 9th street. Move that we approve a lease with mr. Whittington for this property.
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. This morning we did delay consideration of two items to give our county clerk an opportunity to come to court. Item 27 is to consider and take appropriate action on issues related to the conduct of the November 4th, 2008, joint general and special elections. Any action on those?
>> no action other than I would like to report to the Commissioners court that the mega vote centers that you funded are working beautifully. Over 2,000 people voted at the north site yesterday and you would have never known it. Nobody waited more than a minute. It was great. 25,000 people voted yesterday. What we really need is for 25,000 people to show up today and tomorrow and the next day and then for 30,000 people to show up next week every day so that we will be able to fit the roughly half million of us that are going to vote for this election. We don't want for anybody to have to wait too long, but if everybody waits till the last, it will create lines. What we're suggesting is voters, do yourself a favor, go and vote now when you don't have to wait. You will be in and out in a zip.
>> dana, can you tell me what that number, projected number is if you can tell me -- under the early voting scenario the make sure the lines may not be as long on v day compared to the number of folks that have to get out in the early voting initiative to make sure there is not a clog in the e-day voting. Is that something, a number that we may have readily at hand?
>> yes. Here's the way to think of it in your mind. Just round it off. What we really need is 300,000 people to vote early, 200 think people on election day. That will max out election day, but it puts more people voting. 300,000 early.
>> 200,000 on election day. That's a very good goal and that's what we're trying to work for.
>> dana also, could you clarify the issues with the straight voting? There were issues regarding that.
>> there has been an e-mail floating around for a couple three weeks on the internet that gives bad advice. It tells people thousand vote a straight party and how to vote for a candidate dan if you follow those instruction you will end up deselecting your candidate. Now, it will be very obvious when you are voting that you don't have a vote for that person so, you know, hopefully people will see, oh, I've just turned off my vote for my candidate, turn it back on. But yesterday we had an incident happen where a person showed up at the -- at a polling place, at the randall's, and thank you, randall's for helping you go with voting, showed up at 9:30, very well dressed in a suit, white shirt, tie, carrying a clipboard, began working the people seeming to target what was described as the ladies. A couple or three little old ladies outside that were preparing to go in to vote. Targeting the ones that said that they were voting a particular way and then if they were supporting that particular candidate, he would tell them this misinformation, which would in fact cause them to deselect their candidate and then you would have to notice it when you vote. He did some work in the parking lot and then he came into the polling place and he was standing at the entrance of the polling place first pretending to be a voter chatting in the ones next to him. As people came in the entrance, he let them by them, now acting as if he's an election official and he was telling as they were coming in about this weird voting thing about do this and do that. The election judge caught him right away. He overheard an inappropriate conversation, pointed at the guy and said sir, that conversation is inappropriate. Whereupon the guy fled. He turned around and ran and he was season in by the voters that were there getting into an old boxy-style, dark red impala with mccain and other bumper stickers all over the car. We don't have a license plate. We have a description of the guy, we made an incident report. About out the main thing I did was try to tell people if you have a pole cat in a polling place, bust them right away. Everybody should know that behavior is inappropriate.
>> a pole cat?
>> pole cat.
>> in regard to the appropriate instructions, one can vote a straight ticket and then --
>> and then do nothing else and read what it does.
>> and review your ballot review sheet, your ballot review screen before you hit cast ballot.
>> absolutely. Because of course straight party voting will cover all of the candidates, but it won't address the aisd and the city of Austin propositions. So you -- it will take you page by page through the ballot and all of your candidates that you marked for straight party will show up as highlighted. And then when you get to the proposition part, that will be blank still waiting for you to take action on that. Your summary page will show the same thing. We're telling people just look at your summary page, make sure it is exactly the way you want it. Before you press the red cast ballot button, if you see anything odd or have questions, call attention to it before you press the red button and we'll help.
>> so don't stop at the top and ask questions before the cast ballot button.
>> before the red button. Just take a deep breath and just logically step through your ballot and it will be right there in front of you. Just be calm and read your ballot and don't pay attention to anybody talking nonsense in a polling place.
>> dana, we had a person came and told us that they tried -- someone went into the fiesta mart to vote and hit straight ballot and their presidential lighted part was the opposite from the -- was that reported back to you?
>> I did hear that story, yes.
>> is that a -- is that a possible thing of happening?
>> no, it isn't possible -- not if it has -- not if the system has passed logic and accuracy testen and parallel monitoring is supporting that the behavior of the equipment is the same in the field as in the test. I mean no disrespect to the voter, but that is actually a pretty classic voter error. And people don't like to hear that so they would rather it be a problem with the machines. But I assure everybody that the testing and the performance that we are talking day by day is moves that is -- that is not happening and we apologize to the voter for the inconvenience caused to that person. But it's all the same. If you make that kind of mistake, it's still not a problem because you have plenty of time to correct your ballot and to get it exactly the way you want it. So there is no jumping, there is no flipping, there's none of that happening. We, now he, those are the facts as we know them.
>> would the person have been able to walk over to get a poll person, an official and say I just voted straight ticket for republican, and when the screen popped up, you know, showing you all the mark-in for the republicans, it shows that on the presidential that there is a obama -- are you saying --
>> this person was actually, yeah, voting a straight ticket and it was the other candidate that was checked. That person did show the ballot to the election worker. That's how come we knew bit. But that's after -- I mean what would happen is, you know, if you make two quick clicks, that could happen where it would -- the machine thinks you have already moved to the second the state party is first and the presidential candidates are next. If you were real quickly jumping and happy triggered with it, it's possible the machine thinks you did straight party and marked the other candidate and by the time it rolls through lunch and rolls through twice, it would look like it just came up that way when in fact it has received instructions to do that from the voter, an inadvertent touch will cause that. If you are too happy with the buttons. That's why we tell everybody step through it logically, calmly, don't be too trigger happy with it.
>> and dana, can you legally say I want to vote straight ticket but I don't want really want to straight ticket that person and hit -- I mean can you do that?
>> yes, sir.
>> because I will tell you, I bet you that 90% of the people have no idea you can do that because their intent is when they vote a straight party, they expect -- that's who I want to vote for on each of the races. But you technically can pull each name up and say, well, you know, I really do want to vote for this person even though they are not in the party and hit that and then before you hit cast, you will have that vote counted that way. Correct?
>> it's actually very common and in Texas that is called crossover voting. And basically what it says, the instructions that once again the voter is giving to the voting booth, the voter is saying I want to vote straight party for all these candidates, but they want to make an exception and saying my friend is running for judge something like that and they are the other party. You can go to that race and pick the other candidate and the vote that will count is all the straight parties except for the one that you singled out as the one you want to make an exception to the rule is how it's regarded. It's very common. It's called crossover voting. Once again the machine is going to follow the instructions you give it. So you should just make that ballot say what you want it to say just by landing on your candidate and pushing that enter button.
>> dana, we all know that a lot of folks are worried that early voting did start yesterday, there are folks that may not be aware of early voting actually starting yesterday. My question to you is, for the public, when does early voting conclude.
>> that's a good point to make right now. You can early vote today and every day, every day including the weekend between right now and halloween, October 31st. The polls will close at 7:00 p.m. On October 31st for early voting, except for the two mega vote sites. The two mega vote sites on the last three days of early voting will be open until 9:00 p.m. Try to catch that extra late hour, give people one last opportunity to vote. So the answer is vote any time between right now and October 31st. Most of the locations are open 7:00 to 7:00. You are going to find late hours at the two mega sites.
>> and where are the two mega sites?
>> north is next door to the county clerk and tax office at 5501 airport boulevard. The mega vote south is at the southeast corner of 71 and westgate boulevard. It's basically the shopping center that is right across the street from the westgate theaters. Southward across the street from the westgate theaters. If you know where madame ma'am's chinese buffet is, turn right there.
>> thank you.
>> we do encourage people to early vote now, especially if your schedule has flexibility, it's going to be better for you and all of us.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 1:38 PM