Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, September 28, 2010,
Item 60
Number 60, consider and take appropriate action regarding an order designating the main early voting location, all temporary early voting locations and mobile early voting polling places for the november 2nd, 2010 joint general and special elections. Ms. Renek, did you want to give comments on item 60?
>> yes. This item pertains to voting locations for early voting, mobile voting and other voting locations.
>> my understanding is there's a similar item to give approval for other locations, i believe?
>> that item was just approved and that was number 59. Designating election polling places for november 2nd. But any comments rhett to go either one would be fine.
>> thank you very much. Thank you. I think probably pretty apparent what our position is in regards to voting, but what i would like to say to try to keep it specific to this agenda item is that in terms of what will go on at these polling places, this november, is that we would like to continue a request that voters when they go to these locations, we know it's difficult during early voting to provide paper ballots for everyone because it is very -- you would have to provide every single different ballot face. And i think some elections have 700 different ballot faces. But we really think it's important that people be given the option of a paper ballot or if they want to vote on the machines. We look to what happened in houston and we see how quickly they were able in light of the tragedy that happened there with their machines being destroyed that their remedy for that was to try to come up with as many machines as possible, but they realize that there will be long lines. So they are offering all their voters the option of a paper ballot. That paper ballot will be i'm sure count bid a scanner, so we don't see just hand agriculture paper ballot out as the final solution, but we see it the step in a progression of getting back to totally transparent elections. I think the other point is that with the paper ballot it -- let's see. There was something else i wanted to say. I guess we just wanted to -- i know, i'm sorry. I just remembered what it was. There seems to be some conflicting information and this may harken back to an item that was pulled off the agenda last week. But it has to do with the machines and the numbers of machines that we have here in travis county. There seems to be conflicting information from the elections division. In one sense the clerk was voted in an article in the "austin american-statesman" on their website as saying that because travis county is helping out harris county because they have fewer machines and travis county is sending machines to harris county, that voters in travis county should expect longer lines. Poom peem say if we have fewer machines here in travis county, the same offer should be made here in travis. I know that there was someone else, michael wynn from the elections division, who said that the machines that are being sent to harris county were actually just extras that were sitting around and there was no expense involved in sending these. And that was the reason that you did not -- you put it as a consent item last week. So we're confused and we wanted some clarification as to what is -- what is the real story in terms of will there be fewer machines because travis county has decided to help harris? We're just -- we're wondering, you know, when what the real story is.
>> the information you sent me quoted the county clerk as saying if you are concerned about long lines on election day, you can early vote. She didn't say expect long lines on election day. Now, if it were a presidential election, i think we would expect lines -- we would expect a higher turnout. But i would be real surprised if there's any kind of wait on november 2nd because there never is. Not that many people vote. A and as to the equipment, we can confirm that i may have used extras, i don't know, but i'm told that there was surplus inventory that we sent to harris county. Mr. Wynn can correct me if i'm wrong. But that was surplus inventory and i may have said extra, i may have said surplus, i don't know, but i was left with the impression that we will not be adversely impacted locally by loaning those machines to harris county.
>> that's not exactly what you would get from the quote that was in the statesman article.
>> well, the article that you sent me, the headline was one thing, the quote attributed to miss dana debeauvoir was another. She said if you're concerned about long lines on election day, go early vote basically. Or you can early vote.
>> but prior to her saying that, that conclusion, she said we help our neighbors in texas. And we are sending some of our machines to harris county to help them out. And then the next sentence is, if voters are concerned that -- you just have to draw a conclusion from that is that well, if we're sending machines, then we have fewer machines. And then se said, following that, then if you're concerned about that, then vote early.
>> one concern i have is that we early vote 10 to 12 days. And the turnout is right. So it's a pretty costly endeavor. I always wonder whether or not we get the return that we deserve. If we're urging people to early vote, i see no problem with that. I don't have any concern about election day voting. I love to vote on election day, to be honest, but i -- my wait normally is less than two minutes. In fact, most of the time if you get there at 5:00, you can walk right in and vote. If you get there five minutes until seven you may have to wait a minute or two. But the -- during a presidential year you may have 10 to 15 minute wait. During an off year typically you walk right up and vote. And if you early vote you really can vote quickly. Frts so when i read what you sent, and i reached an entirely different conclusion. And i carefully reviewed the quote attributed to the county clerk and it was basically if you are concerned about waiting on election day, please early vote.
>> that's after she said we had sent machines off to houston.
>> all right. We're helping our neighbors out. We're sending them surplus inventory.
>> yes.
>> no, no. Her article didn't say surplus. That was --
>> it doesn't say one way or the other. But you quoted me as saying extra, and i don't know whether i said extra or surplus. I was not generating this on my own. I was told that and i confirmed that --
>> that was the reason it was pulled from the agenda last week. It was supposed to be an item on the court's agenda.
>> ... And we think early voting -- well, right now we're using machines, but if we -- when we do get back to fully transparent observable elections, then the people will understand that early voting is a two-week period of time during which the ballots are being hidden from the public. They would be taken and held somewhere, but it's during that period of time when the chain of custody is broken where the public is not able to view the ballots, that's when anything could happen. Our official position is we should just be voting on election day because the voting process needs to be one continuous process from very early morning when the ballots are cast and then they are finally counted and the results are posted at the end of the day. And then you know exactly the results for each precinct. So i guess our position is we -- we don't think there should be early voting. But now that we have machines, you know, it's part of the process we have now, unfortunately. Thank you.
>> and i have a question. Ms. Rennick, my understanding, and i'd like to hear your point of view, my understanding is that early voting has positively impacted voter turnout.
>> i'm not so sure about that. You know, i've been discussing that with lulac because in the hispanic community, because people -- i think people assume that it helps predominantly minority voters. He says that a lot of the -- of the -- the studies that have been done don't exactly reflect that and he is going to try and pull up -- get ahold of some of the studies lulac has done and other organizations that have been looking at the hispanic vote and how it helps in terms of early voting. So i think that's maybe the assumption that maybe we need to look at, and plus it's extremely costly, as we all know. So i'm not sure that that's really the correct assumption on that.
>> and with regard to -- with regard to the rescue's position against early voting because it would be a -- a break in the custody --
>> yes.
>> -- of the body of ballots.
>> correct.
>> is there any -- is there also a consideration by vote rescue -- it appears that it would be impractical to do early voting via paper ballots.
>> yes.
>> is there any room in vote rescue's mind, in the organizational mind of vote rescue for a hybrid approach?
>> well, the problem with a hybrid approach is that then you have part of the people voting on the machines where the votes are being counted secretly and then the rest of the voters would be voting, if we had paper ballots, like you said, a hybrid, you use the machines during the early voting period and paper ballots would be hand counted on election day. Not everyone's vote would be counted in a observable way.
>> my understanding from at least the draft proposal coming out of the study group was hybrid approach where a single body of ballots could be both electronically and hand counted, which was an intriguing idea.
>> well, that is the -- i guess that's the opinion of the county clerk and the people that are supporting her. We submitted our ultimate report and we don't support that and i think it's pretty clearly written in there and explains why we don't fairly clearly on that. Thank you very much.
>> anybody else here on item 60? All in favor? Was there a motion? Motion to approve.
>> second.
>> discussion on the motion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you all very much from the clerk's office. I had asked them to be available in case there were questions.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 28, 2010 3:37 PM
