Travis County Commissioners Court

April 17, 2012 - Item 3
Agenda

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Number 3 is a public hearing to receive comments on the use of vote centers in future elections beginning with the November 6, 2012, Presidential Election.

>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, dana debouvier, Travis County clerk.
just a couple of comments to open the public hearing.
we used vote centers for the first time in Travis County for last November's constitutional amendment election.
the preliminary information that we have back from our citizens is that they loved it.
they thought it was definitely a -- a convenience factor and many of them took advantage of it to the tune of approximately 32%, 9,516 out of 29,707 voters took advantage of the opportunity to vote outside of their polling place on election day.
and you've been given some individual statistics about the performance of your precinct.
it's pretty much the same average everywhere, although precinct 1 gets the gold star for having the most number of people take advantage of this opportunity.
the -- the usage was in fact high across all of the county, but I think one of the things that we -- that voters particularly liked about our approach was that we kept the neighborhood influence of vote centers.
rather than using the approach that some counties have used and received criticism for.
what we did was instead of cutting a whole bunch of our usual neighborhood polling places, we kept all of them so that we could keep the neighborhood convenience.
those who were accustomed to voting in their neighborhoods on election day could continue to do so.
people who walk to their neighborhood polling places could continue to do so she not a problem.
but for those who found themselves for whatever reason across town or unable to make that commute all the way back home, vote centers offered them a level of convenience that probably saved their vote for that one day.
so we do think that keeping the -- all of our precinct locations and turning all of them into vote centers was a benefit for our public that I would recommend that we continue for the future, so that's one of our presumptions that if you decide to continue this based on the comments that you get from the community, I would recommend that.
let's see.
one of the good things about vote centers is that with the -- we, of course, weren't predicting exactly how many locations that we would have for -- as a result of redistricting, but it looks like now we would have had 29 new polling places that we would have had to equip with extra equipment.
that extra equipment would have cost approximately a half a million dollars.
that is a cost that you can avoid by adopting a vote center approach because we can certainly have ballot styles available for every single one of those new precincts, but we don't have to have voters showing up at those new precincts.
so from a voter's perspective they see the lay of the land as they always v I think what I would like to do is cut off my comments, turn it over to my colleague tina morton, our interim tax assessor-collector to see if she's got any thoughts and then we can hear from members of the public.

>> miss morton.

>> good morning, judge, Commissioners.
I just wanted to verify that dana has already explained, we had many people quite pleased they could stop on their way home from work to a vote center and that kept them from having to rush home and get there in time before the polls close.
we serve a lot of people, of course, who are calling to check on voter rental administration so we're recommending their home polling place or this alternative vote center and we found, staff has reported that many people were very pleased that they had choices.
so I would say to you now that that's something that our public, as dana has said, enjoyed, they appreciate and I think they would be pleased to see it continue.

>> would you like for me --

>> court members any questions?

>> I have a question.
I'm really gratified that there is an independent study of this and although this was a constitution election that we utilized it on for the first time, we did see a 1.4% increase in turnout.
do we have any projections with regard to an increased turnout in general election presidential year?

>> professor bob stein out of rice university helped us.
we did some polling on our own and he did some too.
it is very hard to predict turnout in an election because you can't use a double blind study.
but his statistics do control for, you know, when you can't -- when you don't have a control study group of multiple regression is basically the statistical tool that he uses.

>> so will he be studying --

>> yes.

>> > -- the general election?

>> what I'm not able to tell you right now is 1.4 what we would expect for the future?
maybe.

>> thanks.

>> this is a public hearing.
mr. Reeferseed.

>> thank you, sir.
just briefly.

>> state your full name.

>> my name is ronnie reeferseed.
and I'm just trying to beg everybody on this key issue of our form of government to wake up.
look, we can all avoid this half a billion, half a million, whatever cost she was talking about, by returning to actual voting results, banning these costly -- excuse me, banning these costly programable, hackable voting machines.
we don't need little electronic gizmos.
we can count ballots the way we've always done it and that would be valid.
we would have witnesses with their to actually watch those -- the ballot -- the paper ballots fall into the -- into the container.
we can witness it and we would really know.
otherwise we've still got these hackable, programable machines like ms. Dana debouvier pointed out they are very costly.
recently they were saying, well, if we have elections with runoffs, we're going to have a to buy a whole other set of those costly machines.
it's idiotic.
we don't have the money to waste.
let's return to real democracy and use paper ballottings.
that's basically what I want to point out.
thank you.

>> dr. Kim.

>> yes, sir.
excuse me.
do you have any printed calendar regarding elections a couple of pages?

>> do we have a schedule, an election schedule, ms. Dana debouvier.
we have that.
if you get with them they will mail it or email it.

>> sir, I will.

>> okay.

>> or do you have any plan to print in the newspaper about election calendar?
we need to know when voting registration close and when we have to vote, only vote or all things.

>> yes, sir, that is -- it is published in the newspaper.
it is also available on our website.
and we would be happy to work with you individually to make sure that your group has all of that information.
we currently have fliers that we hand out.
we are prepared to work with you to get that information out and I know the court would like nothing better than if we could work together to help get that information circulated.

>> I'd like to speak to the whole population of voters, not for me alone.

>> this is your opportunity, dr. Kim.

>> thank you.

>> well, thank you.
your turn, ma'am.

>> good morning, my name is carol echolcamp and I live in east Austin and also a volunteer election judge and clerk and translator.
I've worked a number of elections and I've testified on the voting centers and I'm very much in favor of the voting centers as it was presented to the court and what you all approved in November.
and I would like to support the continuing use of the individual precinct.
I like that, but I would also like to suggest to the court that they look at the fiscal, at the cost of the smaller precincts and the cost per vote of some of the smaller precincts.
I know that the county offices have made a -- they've made an effort to combine precincts.
I'm in a very small precinct off cameron road, the 51st street area, and our precincts have been combined because there is so few that turn out on election day, and I commend that combination, but one of the things that really disturbs me is that if we're going to allow easy access at different points in time on an election day, no matter where you are, if you are at the grocery store, if you are at school, if you are dropping somebody off at a job or a doctor's appointment, you are going to be able to vote at a precinct, any precinct on that day, but the problem we still have early voting that runs such a long period of time and costs a ton of money when you look at the stats.
and all I'm asking is that we look at the statistics of the voter turnout both on an early voting and on an individual precinct basis and perhaps fiscally we can be a little more responsible with our dollars and combine some of those locations so that we're not disenfranchising any voters, but we're actually going to where we are being responsible with my tax dollars and your tax dollars across the county.
so I was a part of -- I worked at a precinct that had early -- not early voting, I worked election day in November and it was really a positive feedback that I got from the voters that came in.
I was off wells branch in the far north part of Travis County.
and I very much enjoyed hearing positive things about the voting.
and I know that there were no complaints, if I understand, no complaints, and we have the technology now and we are in modern age where we can use that technology, so let's use the technology, let's transfer it over to the dollars we save and not go backwards but go forward and keep combining precincts and the civic education of getting the votes out.
I support the voting centers.
I hope you guys will approve them for use forever because it was nice.

>> thank you very much.
if you are here to give comments on item 3, please come forward.
we've got four chairs.
mr. Fernando.

>> good morning, judge, Commissioners.
I come to speak as lulac district director and I come here before to you support the vote centers in November.
I personally worked precinct 439 during the last opportunity that the vote centers occurred, and yes, we did receive nothing but positive comments because of this opportunity that was afforded to them.
as a matter of fact, we had an increase in precinct 439 because of the voter center opportunity.
we did have very high profile, if you will, former elected officials and current elected officials turn out and former senator barrientos, representative rodriguez and they were all very complimentary about with the opportunity to have the -- the vote center opportunity because they specifically were at meetings and were in the neighborhood in the area and had this opportunity had not been available they would not have been able to cast their vote.
it is, like I mentioned, because of the technology that we have today, it affords us this opportunity to ensure that all registered voters are given the maximum opportunity to vote.
if one -- if this opportunity increases by one vote, I mean that in itself is enough, in my opinion.
specifically in east Austin, we are continuing to advocate and educate our community so that voting will become a

>> [inaudible] within the home.
voting is something that we're still continuing to work as an outreach, and having the vote centers is an opportunity to accommodate the opportunity to vote is something that we strongly support and we hope that this court will support and vote to have vote centers in November and in the future because, again, you know, one of the biggest things we want to see in a democracy is our people to participate in the civic -- in the civic process and the overall process.
thank you for the opportunity to testify before you.
thank you.

>> thank you very much.
yes.

>> vicky carp with vote rescue.
good morning, judge and Commissioners.

>> good morning.

>> I come before you today dressed in black to mark the funeral of democratic elections in Travis County.
it's horrific enough we'll still using the secret vote counting computers out of the sight of the voters so nobody really knows who wins any election.
and now with the continued and more widespread use of voting centers, whatever was left of the sense of community related to voting strictly in our neighborhoods will effectively be dead and gone forever.
public elections held in neighborhood precincts exclusively, may you rest in peace.
convenience, speed and reporting election results by 10:00 news have taken precedence over the community who come together to exercise the democratic process and to perform the public count of paper ballots at the precinct level.
and to post the totals there?
sight of all who voted there that day.
it's a sad, sat day in Travis County as these voting centers get approved for November as I have no doubt they will.
the accountability of the precinct election workers for the sanctity of their neighbors' votes is gone but I guess it doesn't matter because ever since the advent of computerized voting there has been no way election workers could ever guarantee their votes were being count as cast, not now, not ever, not with all the security measures in the world.
the supreme court of germany got it right in 2009 when they found electronic voting to be unconstitutional.
not just in some small towns across the country as our county clerk misstated when my colleague raised this issue before the court, but across the entire country.
and why?
the court found that it should take no special technical knowledge for a voter to understand how their vote is being counted.
dan rather did a hd net documentary in 2010 will this inspired high court decision called dan rather reports.votes.
I have a article about that d.v.d.
that he produced for the court today.
now apparently, according to our county clerk's written statement, no complaints about Travis County voters vote centers were received by their office or the Texas secretary of state after their initial use in November and that voter turnout increased by 1.41%.
if only there was a way to measure how many voters stayed home on election day because like me they have absolutely no belief there's any integrity left in the Travis County election system.
in spite of the mass deference to the contrary, I still believe that one day the people will eliminate voting centers, bring all voting back to the neighborhood precincts and conduct elections with paper ballots counted at the precinct level on election day.
to bring integrity back to the entire process and let's see then what kind of turnout results occur then.

>> thank you.
yes, sir.

>> my name is john ullrich.
u-l-r-i-c-h.
I have grave concerns about with this process.
the last election I had the largest turnout election day and the largest turnout overall.
I have many problems during that cycle.
many who came to vote using their driver's license.
we scanned it, the assistant said there was no valid voter style for them.
we put in their name, we found out not only was there a valid one, but there was multiple styles for those same voters.
I then decided to do some investigation.
my mother lived with me several years ago and she was a registered voter.
she then moved to an assisted living center and she was removed from the rolls in Travis County.
every several months I get a valid voter list of voters in my area just to scan it to do followup.
she had been removed from Travis County for at least six years.
however, that day I found her as a valid voter back in Travis County.
to me, that is a serious concern of allowing undocumented, if you will, voters back on the rolls for someone to use.
not only her but several other people I found that were now valid voters.
this system allows me as election judge no paper list of valid voters in my area.
to have a list of how many valid voters were in my precinct.
obviously the number was greatly increased.
I've got very, very serious concerns about the validity of this election process being used in this county.
I am concerned of how many people are being voted illegally.
to me, I was able to see many valid voters that have been removed, and when I had issues and concerns with some of the technicians about concerns with people that had registered but were not on the rolls, they said that that problem would disappear with new driver's licenses.
when I was talking to the troubleshooter, it just so happened we had that very scenario play out before his eyes.
which he just turned around and left.
I don't know what the objective is, but I'm very concerned about there is not a concern for integrity in the election process here in Travis County.
thank you.

>> thank you.

>> thank you.
yes, sir.

>> good morning, my name is stewart snyder, I'm president of the Austin league of women voters.

>> [inaudible] the league has a history of improving voter access and we think this will help do that so we are in favor of this proposition.
we have some concerns.
we think voters should receive ample notification so that somebody -- to eliminate the scenario where somebody is not aware they can vote anywhere and they avoid voting because they are not near their precinct by 7:00 p.m.
so we just want adequate publication on this.
if there are any poll movements or closures as a result of this change or as a result of redistricting, we want to make sure there's public input about that, pickup forum.
forum -- public forum.
we think this change should only happen if it's likely all future elections will be conducted this way.
we don't want voters to walk into elections in November knowing they can vote anywhere and then in the primary or the city elections next year in may thinking they can vote anywhere and not being able to.
we don't want that surprise for voters.
other than that, we are strongly in favor of this.
thank you very much.

>> we won't be able to use it for primaries statutorily.

>> really?

>> we are -- we are just not allowed to at this point.
how does that affect your -- the league of women voters' position?

>> it would probably drive us to talk to the state legislature.

>> thank you.

>> have you given ms. Dana debouvier a copy?

>> yes.
oh, I'm sorry, have I one more.

>> thank u dr. Kim very quickly.

>> yes, sir.
do we Travis County Commissioners court have authority to decide how to conduct our voting on November 6, 2012?
do we have --

>> the answer is yes, isn't it?

>> yes.

>> I'm sure there are guidelines provided by the state, so as long as we operate within those guidelines, the answer is affirmative.

>> if we suggest some way to how to conduct our voting the way, can we decide it here?

>> not today.

>> oh, later.

>> any ideas you have, send them to ms. Dane in writing.

>> thank you.

>> I've always found her to be helpful.

>> last time I helped with a voter who did not know very well how to exercise voting rights.
a person did not know in front of the machine.
really did not know how to conduct it.
there's no way how to conduct it very welfarely.
thank you.

>> thank you for helping them.

>> mr. Pena.

>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, gus peen in a, proud united states marine corps veteran.
our class of 1970 was the first class allowed to vote under the

>> [inaudible] criteria and I supported this even though I want to thank ms. Vicky c.a.r., I think they are valid, I think we need to look into them, but I support and have supported the voting centers.
let me make it abundantly clear that we had a lot of youth that were registered to vote and they went and used the vote centers and they were very pleased.
painless, wow, a word I hadn't heard in a long time.
school, meaning us more mature adults, is their verbiage.
they said it's easy, why didn't we do it before.
we support it.
a lot of veterans utilized these vote centers and they were happy with it.
so my statements are keep up the good work.
there are some concerns.
please address them, but I support them, a lot of veterans support them and a lot of youth have supported them.
that's all I have to say and accountability.
thank you.

>> thank you very much.
final call, five seats available, please come forward if you would like to give comments.
yes.

>> I'm

>> [inaudible], I'm the Travis County republican party chairman.
and I have some -- basically what I'm going to be speaking to you about is the record from the report of the 80th legislative session on house bill 758.
this was the bill that actually initiated this process as being a pilot program that was available to counties throughout the state of Texas.
and I just -- I've highlighted two important points in this report which basically I think we need to focus on.
as Commissioner Eckhardt said, we are limited by some of the things statutorily that we don't have choices in.
I would like to bring to the attention of the court that the definition of countywide voting locations termed super precincts or vote centers, which we have started calling them here in Travis County, instead of providing polling places in each county precinct election precinct, these were to supersede our precinct location.
there was quite a bit of discussion when the idea was brought up and a number of viewpoints expressed if we went to this vote center idea or super precinct, would they take precedence over our individually -- you know, our smaller voting precincts.
and I would just bring your attention to the bottom page of the first page, in the implementation phase following the passage of house bill 758, there was some discussion of whether the bill required countywide polling places in addition to election day precinct polling places or whether the requirement was in lieu of or in place of traditional election polling places.
chairwoman denny wrote a letter, this is so much of a controversies are we talking about keeping our polling places and adding them on top of those or eliminating them, this is quite a point of contention.
that they clarified the intent of the law was to allow for a pilot in which countywide locations were to be used in lieu of or in place of the regular precinct polling locations.
now, I was present in this courtroom when -- or Commissioners courtroom when we discussed this and there was unanimous agreement with a number of people who have spoken today and some that I haven't spoken today, that we did not want to lose our neighborhood polling place, go where you are familiar to vote, do not in any circumstance make those go away.
and I was very much in favor of that.
well, the intent of this law was that ultimately you would basically consolidate those, you would have the convenience of people going to kind of a super precinct, and then ultimately you would actually eliminate our polling places.
so I went back after we had the discussion, you know, months ago about whether we would do it in Travis County, and when it was unanimous agreement from this court and from citizen input that we would not eliminate our polling places, then logic would tell you that basically the question should have stopped at that point because the intent of this law was that you would

>> [inaudible] to one or the other and we chose really from a unanimous outpouring of public opinion and the unanimousness of this court that we would not eliminate any polling places.
so I just put this before you that I think that we have kind of gone off course from what the intent of this house bill 758 was.
I'd be happy to answer any questions.

>> thank you very much, dr. Edwards.
ms. Dana debouvier, any brief closing comments?

>> thank you for helping today.
just to add two quick comments.
we will be going back to the legislature to ask for some clarifications with this law.
one of them is can we use vote centers in other elections.
I believe we are entitled to use them for the city elections, but we need to be clear about that and tml needs to be on our side.
that needs to go badge to the ledge.
the other thing that needs to go back to the ledge is whether or not we are going to be allowed in the future to use vote centers for primaries.
right now the law does not allow us to use vote centers in primaries and both the parties are against that for primary elections.
so we'll need to figure out what would make them happy if we were to use vote centers.
thank you.
I think that's all I've got for today.
I appreciate your time in court and I thank the people who have come out to share their opinions.
I really appreciate the input.

>> if the law is changed we plan to comply with present law.

>> absolutely, which we are doing right now.
we're in full compliance.
you have until July 15th to adopt a final answer whether you want to go forward with vote centers for the future.

>> Commissioner Eckhardt.

>> mr. Ullrich's concerns, do we have any data on vote fraud?
my understanding is that vote fraud is extremely low statewide and -- but do we have an answer for him as to why his mother would remain on the roll?

>> no, I wish he had called me.
I would have been happy to research that item and as a matter of fact we're going to now take it on and research it now.
the -- it is a voter registration issue so I -- how about if I turn it over to ms. Morton and thank you again for everyone's time today.

>> thank you.

>> thank you, dana.

>> we will pursue this and check with mr. Ullrich to find out what we can do.
he mentioned his mom and some other folks so we'll pursue that right away.

>> this matter is not posted for action.
it will be on the court's agenda real soon for us to take action one way or the other and that means next week or the week after.

>> the court's pleasure.

>> thank you all for being down.
we appreciate your cooperation and leadership.

>> just to remind everybody we're talking about vote centers, but for the two elections happening in may, it's vote in your precinct.
let's not get that confused.
vote in your precinct this may.

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