But Travis officials say hundreds of cases have surfaced in which a registration was improperly canceled for someone living here. Hundreds more might not have been caught yet, they warn.
Andrew Knox is one of the people who has been caught in the mess. The 38-year-old had moved from Austin to College Station and then came back to Austin two years ago. He updated his voter information shortly after returning. Last week, he received a letter from Travis County informing him that he was still registered in College Station and could not vote in Austin.
Knox was able to re-establish his eligibility here. But, he said, the situation "kind of hacked me off because it's so close to the election."
There have been numerous reported problems with the TEAM database implementation almost since its inception.
Computerworld, 05/16/07
Texas voter registration system hits roadblocks
Since January, county elections officials have flooded the state with complaints about the system, particularly its poor performance. The complaints have increased markedly since local elections were held throughout the state on May 12.
USA Today in a story dated January 2, 2008 said "Five years after passage of a federal law to create electronic registration databases to deter voter fraud, the new technology is posing hurdles that could disenfranchise thousands of legal voters."
The databases are only as good as the information fed into them by applicants and election officials. That can lead to human errors as well as variations from state to state. Colorado, for instance, knocked nearly 20% of its voters off the rolls between the 2004 and 2006 elections. Arkansas purged 3%, according to Election Assistance Commission data.
Voters who have problems at the polls can cast "provisional" ballots. Election officials rule later whether those votes were properly cast and should be counted. But even that backup system varies greatly from state to state.
When Phil Wilson was appointed Secretary of State by Governor Rick Perry, one of his first actions was to conduct an assessment of the TEAM database system in July of 2007.
"TEAM has not performed up to the standards that election officials across the state expect and require", Wilson added. "This test will simulate activities that occur during a busy election period and allow my office to evaluate the performance of the system."
In November of 2007 the State Auditors Office performed a review of the TEAM database and found numerous security problems with the state's implementation.
The Secretary of State's Office has implemented certain access and security controls over the TEAM system; however, the Secretary of State's Office needs to implement additional controls to ensure that it adequately protects voter registration information and the TEAM system from unauthorized access. Auditors did not identify any breaches of security or disclosures of confidential voter registration data, but they did identify weaknesses that the Secretary of State's Office should address to ensure that the TEAM system is adequately protected. Specifically:
- The Secretary of State's Office does not have a process to ensure that user accounts are authorized by appropriate personnel, including administrative accounts that allow access to and control of confidential information within the TEAM system. The Secretary of State's Office also does not have the appropriate tools necessary to adequately monitor TEAM user activity.
- The Secretary of State's Office has not reviewed existing accounts for validity, nor does it have a process to do so in the future. As a result, it could not confirm whether county or contractor users were actual employees. This increases the risk of unauthorized access.
- Weaknesses within data backup and change management procedures increase the risk that the Secretary of State's Office would be unable to promptly and fully recover from a disaster. In addition, specific weaknesses within application and database security increase the risk that TEAM data is not adequately protected.
Yet most of the main stream media stories following the auditor's report release focused only the 49,049 potentially ineligible voters on the state's rolls. A number that represents 0.4 percent of 12,374,114 registered voters on the rolls as of May 12, 2007. The auditors found that none of the potentially ineligible voters voted in the May, 2007 election. The report shows the continued dissatisfaction of country registration officials with TEAM's performance as well. 51% of the respondents to the official survey answered "no" the question of whether TEAM allowed them to do their job effectively.
San Antonio Express
State audit reveals possible ineligible voters on state rolls
11/27/2007
By KELLEY SHANNON
Associated Press
The Texas Secretary of State's Office needs to improve its voter registration oversight to make sure no dead people or ineligible felons are registered to vote, a state auditor's report found.
The report, dated last week and widely distributed Tuesday, examined state voter rolls for May's election and compared the data to information from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Bureau of Vital Statistics.
It found that 49,049, or 0.4 percent, of 12.37 million registered voters may have been ineligible, including 23,114 possible felons and 23,576 voters who may be deceased. There were duplicate records for 2,359 voters.
Early 2007 estimates of the TEAM system cost were reported to be about $14 million. I haven't found a more recent number but I'm sure the costs have continued to grow.
I'm not surprised to see that SOS spokesman Scott Haywood shift blame to the Travis registration officials while failing to acknowledge any problems they've had overseeing the system.
"If Travis County had been canceling its voters (registrations) like they were supposed to", he said, "there would be no problem."
The full State Auditor's report is available here. |
