THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 2022, TEXAS PRIMARY VOTING

 THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 2022 - TEXAS PRIMARY VOTING

I worked as an election clerk for the Texas Primary on Tuesday, March 1st.  Since this was a primary there were two groups functioning - a Democratic group and a Republican group.  When I worked for the primary two years ago, party affiliation was not a big issue.  It was and still is an open primary.  You walk in and you can declare a party (or even switch a party) immediately.  (I remember this from Wisconsin voting where some Republicans would pick up a Democratic ballot and vote for unsuitable candidates or likewise, some Democrats might pick a Republican ballot and (again) vote for unsuitable (or candidates that would probably lose to their party’s candidate).  

Two years ago, at a table, a voter would come in and the clerk would ask what primary ballot would they like.  If the voter did not want to say it aloud, he (or she) could point to a party name and get a ballot for that group.

I’m in Williamson County and I’m not sure if this is true across Texas - but you can vote anywhere in your county.  So a person who lives in (say) Liberty Hill - northwest corner of Williamson County could work in Taylor (southeast corner of the county) and just vote in Taylor.  

The driver’s license has a barcode on the back of the license that gets scanned and it brings up the voter’s demographics.  As the driver’s license has a photo on it, the clerk can give a visual check to see if that is the person who is voting.  (Like a young lady has an old lady's driver's license (like grandma’s license - and trying to vote would be turned away.)

In Texas, driver’s licenses last for six years, and in the period of six years the person’s hair color could have changed, they may have grown a beard or gone bald, they might be wearing a mask for COVID.

The tablet computers that are used in Williamson County interface to a dedicated controlled network.  By scanning the driver’s license the address is obtained (and verified with the voter).  That determines which precinct and what races the voter can vote on - even if the polling place is miles away from the resident’s home.  

There are those who have moved and they need to fill out a change of address form and then they can vote a provisional ballot based on the new information.

A printer is attached to the tablet computer and prints a ballot header with encoded correct precinct information.  The voter takes this ballot with just the header on it to a voting machine.  The voter inserts the ballot into the voting machine (also a computer), reads and decrypts the header, and brings up the correct ballot.  The voter can select his or her choices in the election with their finger or a stylist. After the voter reviews their ballot they touch the print button which encodes the voter's choices onto the paper ballot.  The voter walks across the room and drops that ballot into a controlled ballot box.  The paper ballot is read, decoded and the information is saved in the computer.  

In the 2020 general election (outside of Texas) there were candidates and parties that said the election was “stolen”.  Analysis was done and to the best of my knowledge, there were no findings of large malfeasance or fraud.  

In this primary election to my knowledge, there was no major fraud or ballot stuffing.  

At our polling location, the head of the voting team signed (in this case stamped) on the back bottom of each ballot.  Ballots that had the head judge’s signature were all that went into the ballot box.  If a person stole empty ballots they would be of no use without the header information (gotten from the clerk station), and of no value since there were no markings on them.  Could somebody had programmed the voting machines to encode and print candidate B’s information on the ballot instead of candidate A?  Possibly.  But the voting machines are checked and verified.  Could malicious code be placed on a machine?  Possibly, but the only time the machines are open for input is on election day in a very controlled environment.

Other potential places for error do exist.  It could be possible to request a mail-in ballot by (say) a spouse opening the mail and faking the name of the voter.  (Like Jane Does opens the mail for John Doe, sees that it is a ballot and as the spouse of John for years fills out the ballot and sends it in.  That can happen and other than sending people to houses to verify the information would be difficult to catch.  (If it even could be that John Doe died since the last election and thus Jane is filling out a ballot for a deceased person!!).  But as the ballot gets mailed back to the central office, the name is checked on a list and if John’s death has been recorded on the database, the ballot is discarded and potentially the spouse could be accused of voter fraud.  

If a person changes their address and the computer doesn’t have the new address, the voter fills out a change of address form, and the ballot is considered a provisional ballot.  Those are kept separately.  If an election is close, the provisional ballots are considered one by one.  If an election is not close (say candidate A had 20,000 votes in the normal voting, and candidate B had 10,000 votes and there are many 50 provisional votes they will be saved (just in case), but not needed for the election.  

Also in Williamson county, with several polling places in a busy northern suburb area to Austin, each polling place is required to put wait times on a countywide system.  So if polling place A has an hour waiting time and polling place B has no waiting time, before leaving his house the astute voter can check the waiting times and go directly to polling place B. 

There are other possible issues that might arise.  Maybe the voter who has just printed his ballot and is on the way to the ballot box remembers that he wanted to vote for a certain candidate and “knows” that he didn’t see that name on the ballot, so that voter can request a second ballot.  (That didn’t happen in the elections I’ve been involved with!!)

In my very limited view of voting, this system seems to be very safe and very accurate.  I like the concept of being able to vote at any polling station (I remember long lines at my Hamden Connecticut polling station).  With technology, the process of verifying the eligibility to vote is established quickly.  

A side comment.  Candidates can have signs near polling places - but no closer than 100 feet.  There can be no politicking on the sidewalks within 100 feet.  

There are strict rules for poll watchers and poll watchers have to be certified and are restricted in their observations (We did not have any poll watchers at our station this time).

*****

Voting is a challenging situation for Americans and democracies in general.  We want fair elections without harassment and fraud.  

Karen

February 3, 2022