Travis County Commissioners Court

April 10, 2012 - Item 11
Agenda

View captioned video.

This morning there were a couple of -- one item we discussed and said that we would call back up.
the other one, number 11. 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 ask the May 29, 2012 Joint Primary Election and approval of additional costs associated with early voting for this election.
ms. Dana debeauvoir?

>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, dana debeauvoir, Travis County clerk.
yes, what I have before you is a proposal that asks you to consider expanding what was an original budget proposal to you, the original budget proposal for the democratic and republican primary early voting program, which county government pays for.
excuse me.
the -- the parties primaries pay for their own early voting expenses.
but in Texas, under Texas law, county government pays for the early voting portion of the election.
we did a budget tightening planning this year and put forward for you a hypothetical 12 site early voting program for the primary.
I would like to ask you now to reconsider that budget plan.
because we're -- we did not know at the time that we were going to be in a completely different picture now.
because of redistricting and because of the delay of the primary, due to redistricting, we now have the situation where we have a very crowded may calendar.
in may, we will have two elections.
the first election will be the local cities and schools that will be voting on may 12th.
and their early voting will happen, obviously, in the very first few days of may.
on may the 29th, the democratic and republican primaries will have their -- their election and shortly before that, 17 days before that, they will have their early voting program.
I would ask the court to consider that perhaps these early voting programs, the one for the local election as well as the one run for the primaries, perhaps do the best we can to mirror one another since they are going to be a mere three weeks apart and that by doing that we can avoid a lot of voter confusion in this very unusual crowded may calendar where we're trying to have both local elections, local may elections and primary elections at the same time.
and in a very unusual circumstance.
we are asking the court to add back in -- for example, both of the fiesta grocery stores, that fiesta at -- central at 38 and a half at i-35 and the fiesta at i-35 and stassney.
we would be asking you to put back in the county tax office at Pflugerville.
it is -- that is because that is included in your territory so we would ask for that to be included.
the brodie at randall's, we want to make sure that is included.
the city of Austin has -- in total, the city of Austin and the other local entities will be asking -- will be using, excuse me, 18 early voting locations.
with our hypothetical 12 what I'm asking you to do is increase the -- the number of locations from our -- from our original budget plan of 12 to also have 18, that means adding six, the approximate cost for adding those six locations is $48,000.
we may be able to -- to save a little bit of money in being able to actually structure that with -- with work shifts.
so my proposal to you is that if we end up spending less, I can return it to the budget and I'm happy to provide you the numbers to do so if you would like for us to approach it that way.
the other thing that I anticipate you would ask me is -- is well, what about election day.
we have done everything we can to also try to -- to make it easier on voters, such that election day for the may 12th election also mirrors the same polling places as the may 29th primary election.
the territory for the local cities and schools elections will be slightly smaller, so you will be covering more territory, but to the extent that they are compatible, we have attempted to use the exact same locations and if they don't match up exactly, it's due to consolidation and it's -- it's a normal thought process that the people in those communities go through.
I think what you'll find is reasonable, tiny changes that the public can expect.
it can reasonably expect.
and we're going to be running a lot of public education and outreach during the month of may to say to voters basically, really, please double check before you go out the door, we're available on the phone, websites, lots of outreach in -- in various newspaper publications and, you know, everything we can think of to reach voters.
of this is not a vote center election.
because primaries legally cannot use vote centers, we thought it was appropriate not to have them for either of the elections in may, and everybody so far has agreed with that, so we will not be offering vote centered.
it is vote where you live within your boundary lines, so all of the more reason to make it as comparable as possible for the voting locations to try to cut down on voter confusion as much as we can.
I ask you for your consideration of this proposal.
and I realize that it's -- it's a budget increase, but we tried to hold it to just the bare minimum that we can.

>> what's the 27,000 for, is that an additional amount?

>> yes, sir, an additional $48,000.

>> 27,000 is in the next paragraph.
what's that --

>> let me see what that is.
yes, sir should.

>> we are looking at --

>> plus the -- yes, sir.
plus -- check point.
let me just make sure that I'm answering you correctly.
we do have a -- it is because of the conventions, we have to add an additional point at check-in at the -- let me make sure this is election day.
election day.
this is going to be election day.

>> are we talking --

>> I'm so sorry.
this -- the only thing that I can say is that it's really important for us to double check each other as we go through this month of may, because it will get confusing which election we're talking about and which piece of which election.
this is for early voting for the primaries, we do have an additional 27,000 that is a personnel cost only that is tied to double checking to make sure that the people who come in to early vote have not crossed over voted in another parties convention so that that makes them ineligible to vote in a particular parties primary.
so we will have an extra person who is going to be crossing off the list once the convention happens so that we make sure that the party's rosters are honored.

>> so the request today is 75,000?

>> yes, sir.

>> that's -- that's 48 plus 27?

>> yes, sir.

>> okay.
move approval.

>> second.

>> discussion?

>> only to say, dana, I really thank you for the work that the county clerk has been doing and that the tax office has been doing, in an incredible time crunch.
I want to apologize to the constituents that our normal process is that we would have checked with precinct chairs and election judges to -- to give them the opportunity to comment.
but we just don't have the luxury of time.
I fully expect that we will get some complaints about things that we didn't intend, but we just -- we're in such a time crunch because of the redistricting morass visited upon us by the legislature.

>> thank you, I echo your sentiment, in asking for their forbearance this time around.
the only thing that I can say is that at least we are asking for more for the community, not for a cutback, I hope that they will forgive us for this round for it being a tad rushed.
I'm trying very hard to meet the federal guidelines so that we can take care of our military and overseas voters for the new 45 day deadline, that's why we're all under this time crunch.

>> mr. Fernandez?

>> yes.

>> [indiscernible] first, I would like to once again like always thank dana and her office.
especially during this time where this election is really -- has really been very confusing, the dates.
but finally it has been set.
lulac district 12 is good go to be working real hard in the community to ensure that we'll minimize the less confusion out in the community and that is going to be -- going to be happening with the -- with the work and relationship with dana's office, she does have a segment that works with the latino community of different organizations and so I'm here to support her request to be able to once again mayor error the city and the county -- mirror the city and the county.
because starting the late week in April, I mean, we'll be doing elections until June, then we'll rest, then November.
so -- so, judge, Commissioners, I'm -- I also want to -- to strongly encourage dana to also -- like she mentioned, communicate through the minority newspapers in the community so that we can garner the most votes that we can through this election cycle, thank you dana for your hard work.

>> thank you for your support.

>> judge?
how will the information be distributed in a timely manner to make sure that the residents, the voting public of Travis County is aware of -- of these particular voting locations, of course, we know that it's not -- we know that it's not the

>> [indiscernible] voting centers, but you have to go to the specific places, but the early voting locations, how do we intend to get the word out to the voting public?
can you just basically just give me just a brief 30 second --

>> all right.

>> show me how we get that out.

>> public service announcements, media releases from my office.

>> okay.

>> Commissioner Davis, would you like to help?

>> [laughter]

>> you know I'm always -- I'm always trying to help folks, but anyway --

>> I think that it's going to take everybody talking about it.

>> yeah.

>> okay.
thank you very much, dana.

>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.

>> thank you so much.

>> thank you.

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.