Kaufman: 1100 people voted twice (Harris county)

[sonias]

Houston Politics blog
Kaufman: 1100 people voted twice

March 25, 2008

Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman told reporters this morning that as
many as 1,165 people voted twice in the primary earlier this month.

Of course, if one did that "knowingly," he or she could be prosecuted,
and Kaufman is sending a list of names to the Harris County District
Attorney's Office. You can read her statement below the jump.

Houston, TX- Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman will provide the Harris
County District Attorney's office today copies of the Democratic and
Republican poll books that show 1165 names of individuals that may have
voted illegally or unlawfully participated in both primaries in the
March 4th Elections.

"Texas law prohibits individuals from voting twice in an election, as
well participating in both the Republican and Democratic primaries
during the same election cycle. In most elections, there are less than a
handful of such cases. In this election, there appears to be a
significant number that may call for further investigation," said Harris
County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, the chief elections officer of the County.

Oh crap!

Sonia

[crispini]

1. Ugh.

According to the County Clerk, during the Primary Elections 389 individuals may have voted illegally by voting in person during the Early Voting Period and also on Election Day. In those instances, 378 occurred in the Democratic Primary and seven in the Republican Primary.

I *knew* that whole "you can vote twice in Texas" slogan would come back and bite some people. Bet you a million dollars these people heard that and thought they had to vote twice to make it count.

Why doesn't Harris county have some mechanism to catch early voters who vote again on election day in the same primary? We do. We go through and stamp our pollbooks.

[sonias]

2. Because Kaufman doesn't know what she's doing?

I think this is actually a bad reflection on her procedures to tell you the truth.

Sonia

[Lone_Star_Dem]

9. When I read this yesterday that's exatly what I thougth too.

I also thought that damn slogan was a bad idea. And having people on television saying to vote and vote often didn't help one bit either.

[texanwitch]

3. Precinct judges receive early voting lists in the election supplies.

Looks like some judges didn't mark the names of early voters in their books.

Judges are suppose to mark either VE or VM next to the name of any voter who voted early.

Looks like a lazy judge to me.

[WolverineDG]

4. Our rolls are updated daily

and all the early votes are noted in the rolls that go out to the precincts on Election Day. I'm sure there's room for error, since the data has to be input manually, but still. That many = incompetence.

dg

[NoPasaran]

5. Let's put these numbers in perspective, though

Eleven hundred sounds like a lot, but turnout in both primaries in Harris County was close to 576,000. The 1165 who "might" (which includes the possibility that at least some of them "might not") have participated illegally represents two-tenths of one percent. Granted, we would like our elections to be perfect, and perfection is a worthy goal. But we should be very wary of hitting the panic button over alleged problems that represent at most only a tiny fraction of the total... especially since these are the kinds of stories that are used to drum up support for Voter ID and other bad ideas that will suppress the vote of a lot more than eleven hundred people out of half a million.

[sonias]

6. Well that is the point exactly

Beverly is a Democrat who obviously has problems running her elections, and this just feeds the republican hysteria on voter fraud. And Nelda Wells Spears support of HB626 was just as bad. Our own folks are hurting our goals to open the franchise.

Sonia

[PDittie]

10. Kaufman is a Republican

She was Dem back in the Sixties. Until we let the black people in. Only the phrase used wasn't "black people".

(Not joking.)

[sonias]

11. Wow - Doe's she have an opponent running against her?

I really thought she was a Democrat. Well we should run someone against her for sure. If we missed this opportunity then next time for sure.

:hi:


Sonia

[PDittie]

13. Retiring in 2010

Houston city council member Sue Lovell strongly rumored to make a run.

[tbyg52]

12. So she's a jerk who messed up

and now it's reflecting on the rest of us. Sweet.

[merci_me]

7. Plenty of room for blame.

First, I think this falls on a lot of shoulders. Precinct judges must go through training, so there's no reason for them NOT to know they need to update the poll books by putting a VE or VM next to the early voters and those who voted by mail. I know one precinct judge who had five precincts on primary day and he spent six hour Sunday, updating the poll books.

Then there's the TDP, who knew, in fact courted, first time voters with an idiotic slogan "Vote twice". Even reporters whose job it is to ferret out the news, couldn't understand the system and most still don't. It's a "had to be there" system. If you've never been to a caucus before, it was a really tough election to learn.

People were told the caucuses started at 7:15pm, but both campaigns, in some locations, were telling people to be there at 6:30pm, adding to the crowd and confusion. One woman, who voted earlier and had never participated in a caucus before, told the newspaper she got there for the caucus and they directed her to get in the voter line. Evidently she wasn't marked as VE or it was overlooked and they sent to to the machine to vote, which she did (voted twice). She didn't realize she had not taken part in a caucus, until she got home and watched the news that night and saw the caucuses still taking place.

I really think the people who voted twice, in this way, have a case and can plead ignorant or duped. As someone said, it's almost like a sting operation. You're told to vote twice and when you do, your name is turned over to the DA.

Now for those who voted in BOTH primaries, go get them. They knew damn well what they were doing. When I lived in Ohio, you were identified on the poll books (and registrations card) by party and if you wanted to change parties, you had to sign a paper acknowledging that you were changing parties. Both parties were voting in the same place, same a the general, and you were sent to the booth on the side of the room where you vote in the party you asked for.

BTW, Beverly Kaufman is a Republican, and though they will try to use this for voter ID, I don't see what good it would have done. If you aren't marked in the books as having already voted, your ID doesn't prove a thing. Also, as long as the parties have separate primaries, there is no way for poll workers to know you voted 10 minutes ago in the other party's primary, photo or no. What we need is party ID and maybe the caucus on the Saturday following the primary.

[crispini]

8. To be fair to the TDP,

I never heard the "vote twice" slogan coming out of them (although I may have missed it) but I did, in fact, hear it coming out of the campaigns. Mostly out of Bill Clinton, actually: "Ya'll are the only state I know of where you can vote twice, legally." :) Hopefully they will not have too hard of a time explaining this to the DA. Poor things. :(