Voters Should Not be Denied Their Right to Vote

You make up what you claim Nelda says and then you retort to the statements you made up.

The issue with these voters is created because they did move, even if some time ago.  They were sent a new VR card to the address on file, and it was returned.  Then the tax office sent them a letter (that is forwarded, if they left a forwarding address)to alert them to the problem.  If they still didn't update their address, they got another chance when they showed up to vote.

They've shown up to vote while on the suspense list.  They were told that at the time.  And the elections clerk (County Clerk's Office) should have required them to fill out a Statement of Residency or VR card.  Then the clerk should have forwarded that document to the tax office to update the registration and new address.

Still, they didn't get purged until after two general elections.

You've been involved in the voter registration program here, because Nelda appointed you as Deputy Registrar.  If you knew this was going on, you could have offered to help fix it years ago, if it can really be prevented.  Instead, you're exaggerating and exploiting, trying to create fear 'cause you got nothing else to explain why the heck you made this race.

Good thing she has him to try to explain her mistakes. Maybe he should just run for tax assessor collector and do it himself since he has an answer for everything. Clearly Nelda doesn't.

Not everything that your opponent does it just "politically motivated". I think Mr. Maxey might actually care about the fact that voters are being disenfranchised given his history of registering thousands of them (and who knows, probably some of the people that Nelda has struck from the rolls).

And you are writing it off. Nothing to see here, move along, move along.  I guess it's easy not caring about disenfranchised voters. What a shame. At least someone is standing up for people's rights these days and not covering it up with a bunch of excuses.  

Other investigations have turned up many more voters who were purged despite having no change of address since their last registration.  KVUE just did a story on it.

"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican." - H.L. Mencken

OK, so no one is at fault. What Glen is arguing is that none of this matters. If in fact Nelda has a list of which voters were purged (and Glen has been around long enough to convince me that he knows what he is talking about), she should ensure that all of these voters are verified AND put back in the system.

This is her responsibility, but her stance...

"I don"t think there is any number like that in terms of data entry problems. I don't think Mr. Conwell knows what he is talking about there."

-Nelda Spears as reported by Elise Hu

...is to claim that experts don't know what they're talking about, blame the SOS, and then do nothing about it. WRONG! Her leadership, or lack there of, is leading to the disenfranchisement of voters.

Glen's record demonstrates this, but for any of you that know Glen, you know he would ever let this happen. Even if the purge were to occur due to a programming error, Glen's record shows that he would make voter reinstatement the priority of the Tax Office.

So forget the "grammar," read the post, and ask yourself, why is Nelda Spears not doing the same?

A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy.

- Theodore Roosevelt

The issue in the TEAM vs Travis County problem, is that VOTERS DID DO THEIR JOB and registered to vote upon returning to Travis County.   Then, whoever is to blame in the finger pointing between TEAM and Travis County, zapped their records.

[The rest of this post is not about the TEAM vs TC issue]

You appear to be responding to the more recent revelations regarding internal problems with TC, namely, voters who for are flagged as Suspended Voters, and then purged after two election cycles, despite having appeared to vote one or more times during the period of suspension.

First, in looking at your post:

The issue with these voters is created because they did move, even if some time ago.

[Mike] 5 of the 9 voter names given to the media had not moved from their registered address.   I'm still laboriously trying to contact all of the identified active voters that were purged, but it's difficult to do with the resources we have.

Then the tax office sent them a letter (that is forwarded, if they left a forwarding address) to alert them to the problem.

[Mike] Not in the case of Ms. Wallace.  Subsequent notices where mailed to her OLD address in 2004, despite the fact that she had already updated her voting record to her NEW address.   Her record was flagged as suspended because notices were bouncing back from her OLD address.   If TC had simply used her address that was in the registry at the moment the subsequent notices, she may not have been flagged with the 'S'

They've shown up to vote while on the suspense list.  They were told that at the time.

[Mike] One hopes so.   But the 'S' on the left hand side of the poll list that election workers use to admit voters, can easily be missed if election workers are poorly trained, or not up to snuff.   Nov 2004 was a very busy election, and a large number of 'S' voters voted, but their flags were not removed.    The Clerks Office and the Tax Office can point fingers at this point, but the fact remains that the Tax Office purged Active Voters.   You would think that the Tax Office would have found this alarming, hollered at the Clerk's Office, sent mail to the affected people, issued a press release, something.

Then the clerk should have forwarded that document to the tax office to update the registration and new address.

[Mike] in the case of J England, the tax office received the Statement of Residence (SoR), scanned it and attached it to his record, but failed to update the database with the address that was on his SoR document.

Still, they didn't get purged until after two general elections.

[Mike] which I'm sure will be very comforting when they're told on Nov 4th, 2008 that they are not on the list, and have to vote provisionally.

Ms Wallace and Mr Earvin didn't find out they weren't on the list until they appeared to vote in Nov 2007.   They voted provisionally, and two weeks later received a single page form letter that informed them their vote was rejected because they weren't on the list.

You've been involved in the voter registration program here, because Nelda appointed you as Deputy Registrar.  If you knew this was going on, you could have offered to help fix it years ago, if it can really be prevented.  Instead, you're exaggerating and exploiting, trying to create fear 'cause you got nothing else to explain why the heck you made this race.

I'm also a sworn in Deputy Registrar and a part time election worker/judge.   I've been raising the spectre of the Suspended Voter issue ever since HAVA, and if you look on my training evaluations forms collected by the County, you'll see that I've raised the issue of SV's multiple times.

In addition, I started this process back in November 2006 and have tried to both County offices serious about the issue.   In December 2006, I received the list of purged voters from 12/1/2006, but was told there wasn't a copy of their records from before the purge.  

In September 2007, I filed a FOIA for database backups from Nov 30, 2004 and Nov 30, 2006.   It was a bluff really, as I'd been told that data wasn't available, but sure enough, they started to process my request.

In December 2007, I finally received the snapshots of the databases from 2004 and 2006, and immediately was able to identify the first 231 voters that voted Nov 2006 and were purged Dec 2006.   The 231 are included in a larger number of 855 voters that voted sometime between 2004 and 2006 and were subsequently purged.   The fact that they voted means their flag should have been removed.

A week later, I received the list of 2004 voters purged.  I'd been told earlier this list wasn't available.   I ran the same analysis and found 1,027 voters that voted Nov 2004, purged Dec 2004.

[yelling] One Thousand active voters were purged in November 2004, and no one at the Travis County Tax Office thought that was odd?!? [/yelling]

I've tried working within the system.  Beginning November 2006 have been to the tax office desk half a dozen times.  

November 2007, I escorted another Provisional Ballot through the Process.   Mr Duncan was removed from the voter rolls not three weeks before the election.  Why?  Because his first and last name matched a voter in Hays County.  Not the middle name, not the birthdate, not the drivers license.   We'll never know if his PV would have been approved, if I didn't force the tax office to compare documents and make multiple phone calls between Hays and Travis County.  His PV was approved, and his old voter registration record was restored.

Now we're up against a voter registration deadline that is less than two weeks away.   Tell me, at this point, what would you do to fix the problem.

Glad to see you got your priorities straight.  

"The Astros Should Not Waste Their Time With Drayton"
"Christians Maintain Their Own Beliefs"
"Commenters Should Not Waste Their Time With Grammatical Comments"

Now, a very great man once said that some people rob you with a fountain pen.

- Theodore Roosevelt

An elected official in charge of the voting list who makes excuses instead of actively trying to help thousands of wrongly purged voters should not be in office.

If I know one thing about Maxey I know that he would not stand for crap like this and not just sit by doing nothing but would actually try to DO something to ensure that no one is disenfranchised and that everyone who has done what they need to register properly is registered and can vote.

"I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually."- James A. Baldwin