Friday, August 27, 2010

An early start to election shenanigans?


I see that Harris County in Texas (including the city of Houston) appears to be making an early run at the title of 'Voter Fraud Capital of the USA' for the 2010 mid-term elections.

First, a Houston non-profit organization allegedly submitted thousands of false and fraudulent voter registration forms, leading to the authorities investigating charges against it.

Next, all the voting machines for the county are destroyed in a mysterious fire.

Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman this morning said she is confident of timely, clean elections in November, even as a fire that destroyed the county's entire inventory of 10,000 electronic voting machines still burned.

. . .

Kaufman hopes to cobble together a collection of voting machines through loans from other counties and replacement equipment from its vendor, she said. All five members of Commissioners Court contacted her this morning to pledge their support in helping her with the resources needed to stage a successful election in which early voting begins in just 52 days, she said.

Kaufman encouraged people to vote early in person or by mail.

"There is no doubt in my mind that we’re going to have a timely election here and that we’re going to take care of the voters," Kaufman said.

Houston Fire Department spokesman Patrick Trahan said arson investigators were at the scene of the fire, but no cause has been determined.

The three-alarm blaze started about 4:15 a.m. at the football field-size warehouse the county uses to store its election equipment. Firefighters extinguished the flames about four hours later.

No injuries were reported.

The county’s voting machines, including eSlate equipment, were stored at the nearly 27,000-square foot facility, county officials said.


There's more at the link.

One problem doesn't necessarily mean much. Two in rapid succession might be coincidence, although I doubt it. I'm waiting for a third problem to arise with voting in Harris County. If it does, I'll take it as pretty conclusive evidence that someone doesn't want an honest election in Houston this year.

Can any readers in the Houston area shed further light on this issue?

Peter

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Once is an accident; twice is coincidence; third time is(will be) enemy action...

Diamond Mair said...

Sheila Jackson-Lee & someone named Daggett? Doggett? are butting into the gubernatorial race in favor of Bill Witless {former mayor of Houston}, making all sorts of denigrating claims about Rick Perry's refusal of federal monies - HERE's the thing about the fed $$ - the fed only funds for a limited time - AFTER that, the states have to fund whatever - Texas is REQUIRED BY THE STATE CONSTITUTION to have a balanced budget - Rick Perry is unwilling to put Texas on the hook for unfunded mandates. These latest revelations don't surprise at all ....................... just re-name Houston to "Chicago-South" ...................

Semper Fi'
DM

Anonymous said...

COuld be that Harris County is jealous of Duvall County (where the dead voted for LBJ, and in alphabetical order yet!)
LittleRed1

Jim March said...

The Harris County voting machines (at least the central tabulator!) was recently loaned to Montgomery County to the north. I know because I examined the audit logs and directory listings on that box and found election data from Harris County and the City of Houston on it and asked questions.

There is NO doubt whatsoever that those machines can be used for evil. Take a look at my report on the Conroe election, written for one of the candidates for Conroe City Council (Leo Hewett):

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B6Fh3F6hufhDNmIxNGU3YjYtNzM3Ni00NmY3LWFhYzQtYWIwOGIyMjJiNTFj&hl=en