CD28: Ciro Rodriguez Rolls Out High-Octane Endorsements, Including John Kerry

Labor Isn't Being Shy about Their Support of Ciro (0.00 / 0)

Here is a post about a letter the Steelworkers sent today.

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by: Andre Pineda @ Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 02:11:53 AM UTC

Great for Ciro; now if we can only get an accurate vote count (3.00 / 1)

There's very disturbing news coming from the Secretary of State's office on problems with the primary election.  Not to worry, SOS Roger Williams would say.  "E-voting is easy, fast and secure."  Another republican sales scam.

Anyway here's part of the memo:

Status of Ballot and Programming Card Orders
I want to thank many of you for contacting our office regarding your ballot status, letting us know that you have still not received your programming media or, in some cases, your ballots, for the March 7, 2006 primary elections. Please be advised that the Secretary of State’s office is communicating with the vendors about the situation, and we regret that you are experiencing this problem. We have been assured that all counties will at least have optical scan ballots in time to start the early voting period. Please be advised that early voting must begin next Tuesday, February 21, 2006, and we authorize the following procedure to ensure that early voting begins timely.

If you are one of the counties affected, the Secretary of State’s office authorizes you to create emergency ballots. If you do not receive your ballots in time to properly prepare for early voting, the vendors should have sent you via e-mail your different ballot styles in a PDF format. You will be able to open that file, and print a copy of the ballot for a particular precinct from that format.

After you print a copy of the ballot, you will need to put a ballot number at the top of the ballot beginning with the next ballot number of the last number of your original ballot order. In other words, if you ordered 15,000 ballots numbered 1-15,000, any ballots you print from the PDF would be numbered beginning with the number 15,001. You will need to put your initials on the back of the ballot so you can determine it was an official ballot provided by you.

More at link above.

Computer security experts like Dan Wallach, are saying that ES&S DRE counties require the services of ES&S for their ballot programming, but ES&S requires more than a month to get the programming job done.  Likewise, it can take more than a month to  get printed paper ballots for the optical scan systems.  The official ballot was delayed, due to lawsuits filed to gain ballot access for some candidates.

Anyone that might be involved in a very close election, I'm thinking Ciro Rodriguez, Victor Morales and Henry Cuellar's race in CD28, should be very concerned.

Here's a list of the kinds of voting systems in use by county. We  have no idea when the SOS site was last updated.

I took a look at the listings and copied the systems used for CD28. They're mostly ES&S.  Most seem to be optical though, but again I have no idea when the SOS website was last updated. If I were Ciro, I would be checking this out.

Here's a list of the counties and their voting system according to the SOS site. Maybe voters in these counties could update us.  And please, please let us know if you got one of those special "emergency ballots".

ATASCOSA COUNTY
Optical, AIS 115, ES & S

FRIO COUNTY
Optical, AIS 550, ES & S

GUADALUPE COUNTY (mixed)
Dre, ACCU-VOTE TOUCHSCREEN, DIEBOLD
Optical, OPTECH IIIPE, ES & S

LA SALLE COUNTY
Optical, AIS 150, ES & S

MCMULLEN COUNTY
Paper

WEBB COUNTY
Optical, AIS 315, ES & S

WILSON COUNTY
Optical, AIS 150, ES & S

ZAPATA COUNTY
Optical, AIS 150, HART INTER CIVIC

Paper ballots, not vapor ballots!

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by: sonia @ Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 05:26:07 AM UTC