Debriefing the Primary Election

Texas was part of super Tuesday, holding our election on Tuesday. Mr. Spherical Model and I worked at our polling place. And I’d like to do something of a debrief, because there are things to learn and other things to be concerned about. This isn’t going to be about who won any races.

As usual, Mr. Spherical Model served as presiding judge (PJ), and I was a bilingual clerk. I worked only part of the day. I came in at noon and worked through closing, precinct convention, and delivering our polling materials to the drop-off center. Anyway, I didn’t experience the setup. But I experienced the results of it all day.

Against all our requests, the middle school we were in refused, again, to place the Republican and Democrat polling places in separate rooms. So we shared the orchestra room. It’s tight enough to cause some discomfort—maybe especially for voters. But it was not quite impossibly awkward.

Mr. Spherical Model and our alternate judge (AJ), who, because this was the primary, is also a Republican, came to the school late in the day Monday to set up. This included setting up tables, and placing—but not opening or unsealing—the e-slate booths. And JBCs, e-pollbooks, and papers remained at our house until Tuesday morning, with the official cell phone being charged overnight.

The Democrat workers came later. Mr. Spherical Model had set it up so that each party could have two welcoming tables for check-in, more or less parallel. But the Democrat PJ wanted to assert her independence by setting things up differently. That’s their choice. But the consequences affected us all day long.

I’ve drawn up a diagram, because this was pretty crazy.

Our voting room, a middle school orchestra room, not necessarily to scale.
I think the voting booths took up more space than shown.

All voters come in the same door. Then they meet a greeter who guides them to a check-in table for their chosen party. You can see that the Republican tables—both of them, are easily accessible. The Democrats’ check-in table (they only wanted to use one, with both JBC machines on it) was over to the far half of the room, but not in sight. Around a corner. Past all their voting booths. You can’t see in my drawing, but, because of the height of the booths, their check-in table was invisible until they rounded the corner.

If they had had a greeter who would meet their voters and guide them to their table, fine. But they didn’t. They did have a greeter outside (so did we) to direct people to our room, which had its own door to the outside, so they wouldn’t wander through the school. Occasionally the Democrats had someone, down beyond that random table for paperwork, who would guide them to the check-in table, if we could get them that far.

The difficulty was, if they saw our second table, but not that far side of the whole room with nothing directing them there, they would head to our second table. Right in front of them, on our table, was a sign indicating it was for Republican voters, and a sign taped to the front of the table as well. And we had tried to explain to them, “Republicans are voting in this half of the room; Democrats are voting in that side of the room,” pointing all the way over there.

We’re not supposed to presume things. But we know from statistics that 90+% of blacks vote Democrat. A fair percentage of Hispanic voters as well. Anyway, all but one of the Democrat workers were black. None probably from this precinct, which has what is probably a normal distribution of around 12% black (none live on our very diverse street). So, if they were black and started walking toward one of our tables, we would have to ask, “So you’re a Republican voter?” At which they would look horrified at us, say, “No! Democrat.” And we would have to walk them past their tiny entrance sign, and sometimes walk to the aisle between their voting booths, and point to their check-in table.

After the first twenty or so, I was finding that to be pretty annoying. Why not let them just flounder until the Democrat workers took care of the problem of their making? But Mr. Spherical Model reminded me to smile and be a goodwill ambassador. Which I did.

There was a man, well into the day, Hispanic, who answered the “which party” question with, “Democrat. I don’t like Republicans,” right to my face while I had been smiling and treating him respectfully. Mr. Spherical Model saw the exchange and said, “Smile anyway.” Maybe at some point they’ll realize the good people helping them were Republicans. And maybe they’ll even notice the ones setting up the room badly and making their lives more difficult in many annoying ways are often Democrats. Who knows? At least we are who we are, regardless of what they say about us.

The Democrats were unprepared in many ways—some of which got reported (because I took our AJ outside and called our ballot security guy on my phone for her to report to) for being essentially illegal, even though I am unaware of anything they did to commit any actual voter fraud.

There’s a protocol for setting up a polling place. Everything comes very organized. Boxes containing big, labeled envelopes and accordion folders, with papers for certain purposes. There’s a checklist. All you have to do is go down the checklist, and you’re set up correctly. If you do that correctly, the day tends to run smoothly, and then you just follow the closing checklists at the end of the day.

They didn’t use the checklist. They just laid everything out all over their back table, spread it around, looked for what they thought they needed, and did it their way. They had the machines connected to take voters at 7:00 AM, but any other business, like signing in workers and giving them the oath, got left undone. And there were papers they said they weren’t given, so we shared ours with them. Our AJ their original supply lying around on their table later; they just hadn’t found them, because, as their bristly PJ said, “I have my own way of organizing things.”

By law we’re required to give a voter count every two hours. It prevents fraud by showing what kind of voter traffic there was throughout the day. You get the count from your JBC machines added together. Their PJ was reminded by one of their workers that she needed to do that. She didn’t want to bother. This is what it looked like at the end of the day.

their mostly unmarked vote count at the end of the day

I can find out how many in my precinct voted on election day, and in early voting. But, because of countywide voting (first time it’s been done in a primary election here), I can’t find out how many voters came to vote Democrat at our polling place. Also because of countywide voting, we no longer get a printed tape of voting on each machine for that day, since the machine now includes ballots from all over the county. That’s one less check against fraud.

Only once during the day did we have to cancel a vote because the voter got all the way to the booth with her code entered in the machine before realizing she had the wrong ballot in front of her. So we had to cancel that, which, because it’s a rare occurrence, was a bit of a challenge to do correctly, so that she could afterward go to the Democrats and get a new code. If we hadn’t been so diligent in getting voters to the right party, that painful problem could have been happening all day long.

We got a lot of questions from voters. I don’t mind answering these. You don’t know what you don’t know sometimes—until you ask and learn about it. One common question was, “Why are we separated? Don’t we usually just vote together?” Yes, but this is a primary election, in which you decide which candidates should be representing your party on the November ballot. “Oh, OK.” They learn by asking. But it’s concerning they were voting in a primary election without knowing what a primary election is.

A variation that I find humorous is, “Why can’t I vote straight ticket?” Because all the candidates on your ballot are of the same party; this is to decide who the candidates for your party will be. I mostly didn’t mention that straight-ticket voting has now been ended by the legislature, so there will be no more one-button voting for Democrats anymore. Republicans tend to be deeper thinkers and want to read all the way down the ballot, and will leave blanks where they don’t know enough about the candidates in a particular race. Too many Democrats follow orders: “You don’t need to know anything about the candidates; just vote Democrat, and that’s all you need to know.” So they’re confused about how to vote a primary ballot. And this year the Democrats will be starting a campaign to get their voters to go all the way down the ballot, instead of just voting top of the ballot and leaving.

Ignorance can be solved by education and experience, so there’s hope for change. But you can’t fix stupid. One voter said, “How am I supposed to know who to vote for when I haven’t heard of any of these names?” Indeed. Maybe you should do some research, using your sample ballot and the internet (before you show up to vote in ways that affect us all, I also thought but didn’t say).

At one point I had a nice little conversation with their outside greeter that made my day. He’d said it was good to show the world how well we get along. Because the news makes it sound like we’re all at war. But really we’re all just people, people who happen to disagree on some things, but we can let that go and get along. I really appreciated that. It was more like other times we’ve shared the polls with Democrats, who are not mostly different from us; they just haven’t been educated to think through issues the way we have.

What I think is, many blacks and Hispanics around here are religious people, who serve God and value strong families. It makes no sense to me why they would vote Democrat, when that agenda is anti-religion and anti-family, and has the added deficiency of causing huge economic roadblocks. People who love freedom, prosperity, and civilization shouldn’t be voting for tyranny, poverty, and savagery by voting Democrat.

I don’t assume my Democrat neighbors are bad people; I assume they don’t know enough. The question, then, is how to reach out and speak to voters who have been blindly voting Democrat, because they’ve been told “they’re the good guys,” when what these voters really want is the freedom to live their lives as they choose, in ways that lead to directly out of poverty toward prosperity, and in ways that coincide with their natural love of civilization. We’ll all be better off if they can hear that message and have it sink in.

My 2020 Primary Recommendations

Early voting ends tomorrow. Primary voting day here in Texas is next Tuesday, which is “Super Tuesday,” voting day along with 13 other states plus American Samoa.

I’ve been procrastinating. Both going ahead and voting and writing about my recommendations. The main reason is that I am sincerely undecided about my state representative race. So I’ve put a deadline on myself to get this out today—giving me one more possible day to early vote.

I’ll walk down the ballot, pretty much skipping the uncontested races. It’s a shorter list than in many previous primaries. We can do this!

TEXAS STATEWIDE RACES

President

While there are other names on the ballot, I only recognize having encountered one in addition to the obvious. Unlike four years ago, now that he has followed through with conservative promises, I’m voting for Donald Trump. And I will campaign as well as I know how against whichever socialist the Democrats put on their ballot.

US Senator

The incumbent senior Texas senator is John Cornyn. I expect him to win. And I will gladly support him against any Democrat. But, in the primary, to get his attention that we actually expect conservative representation, I am voting for Dwayne Stovall. I’ve met him before. His main point is federalism—issues being taken care of at their appropriate level, as local as possible. He’s very Texan. Worth this vote. But you do what you want.

Incidentally, I’m not the only one thinking this way. I have an endorsement matrix put together by my SREC (State Republican Executive Committee) Chair, of various individuals and PACs that have put out their choices. He’s giving Stovall his vote, and two others on the matrix as well.

US Representative

I’m in District 2; my Rep is Dan Crenshaw—because four years ago we—along with our hard work and campaigning for him—got lucky. He has been stellar. He's unchallenged in the primary.

A nearby district is District 7, with three candidates: Wesley Hunt, Cindy Siegel, and Maria Espinoza. I’ve met them all at our local Tea Party meetings. I would give Cindy Siegel my support. She handled the financial report at our county GOP meetings for several years. Before that she was the Mayor of Bellaire, a suburb of Houston, until term-limited out. She has run things. She handles finances well. She’s consistently conservative.

Wesley Hunt looks good on paper. He’s an African-American military veteran, the kind of person you want to be pleased about voting for. However, his voting record shows never having voted in a Republican primary. Maybe we have to forgive him for 2008 (although I’d rather not), but all other primaries? It’s hard to convince me of your dedication to the Constitution without even that minimal record.

Maria Espinoza is impressive enough in person. I like her. A vote for her would also not be wasted.

Railroad Commissioner

Ryan Sutton is the incumbent. He has been excellent. He’s also one of my favorite people to listen to on freedom and the US Constitution. I’ve heard nothing from, and know nothing about, his primary opponent.

Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 3

The Texas Supreme Court is divided into criminal and non-criminal courts. This is an opening on the criminal side. The two lawyers I turn to for their opinions both said Bert Richardson over Gina Parker. I think I’ll agree with them. As my former assistant DA friend said, Bert Richardson “is the most experienced candidate with no glaring weaknesses that I’m aware of. His opponent has far less relevant experience, and her main appeal seems to be she has the most politically conservative credentials.” Conservative credentials are helpful. But, I’ve got those, and I wouldn’t consider that as qualifying for a state supreme court position. Addendum: he also says that Rick Perry didn’t like a Richardson ruling in which Perry was charge, so he firmly supports Parker instead.

SREC 7 Chair Mark Ramsey's matrix of endorsements

HARRIS COUNTY RACES

State Representative, District 138

This is the one I’m undecided on. The three candidates on the ballot are Lacey Hull, Claver Kamau-Imani, and Josh Flynn. Lacey contacted me personally early on. I like her. I relate to her. She’s a homeschool mom who has spent time with nonprofits, dealing with legislative details. She’s married to a veteran, who seems to be a good support to her. She lives in the heart of the district, Spring Branch. However, she’s quiet and gentle. She’s basically me, with a lot more youth and energy. She has the endorsement of Governor Abbott, also Tim Lambert of Texas Home School Coalition.

Some good friends (not in my district) whose opinions I trust, are strongly supporting Claver Kamau-Imani. He’s an African-American preacher—his title is Apostle. He also just recently started homeschooling. There’s a lot we agree on. And he makes a good point that he has a unique ability to outreach to communities we Republicans tend not to reach, and we need that in a district that won by only about 42 votes last time. (The retiring Rep. Dwayne Bohac won in my precinct by about 30 votes, which makes me feel like we’re significant.) Claver is a force of nature. There are moments he seems extreme—although if you spend enough time getting a longer answer, he’s not so scary. But there have been times at past district conventions when I simply didn’t agree with him on various issues—none of which I can remember, though. He has the endorsement of Texas Right to Life.

The third candidate is Josh Flynn. I have not heard from him. He didn’t show up at our Tea Party—although he was scheduled for a forum last Saturday that unfortunately got cancelled, not at all his fault. However, there’s an asterisk: he has been ruled ineligible. This is being challenged, and under law he’s still allowed to have his name on the ballot. He has nevertheless been endorsed by more on the matrix than the other two.

Here’s what I understand of the dispute. He had been serving on the Harris County Board of Education as a trustee. Technically it’s a paid position, paying something nominal like $6 a month. Maybe enough to cover parking, or gas. But there’s an emoluments law that says you can’t run for office while serving in a paid position. There’s a footnote about this on the HCGOPcandidate info page: s

* In response to challenge after the filing deadline, Josh Flynn was declared ineligible to run in the primary. Per Texas law, his name remains on the ballot. Unless a final court ruling holds otherwise, he remains ineligible. Votes for this race will be counted in accordance with Texas Election Code Section 172.058.

As it was explained to me, Flynn was required in the HCBOE bylaws to resign but continue in his duties until he had been replaced on the board. But he failed to show up at the final meeting, and as a result the Democrat vice-chair was able to get installed as chair, put another Democrat in as vice-chair, and appoint another Democrat to the vacancy. The result was flipping the board from long-fought-for conservative leadership to a 5-2 Democrat majority. We all want to get rid of that board altogether, but until then, we at least would have liked what we’d voted for.

So, in the absence of his being able to convince me that doesn’t represent how he’ll function, I’ll at least cross him off my list. I’ll either vote for Lacey Hull or Claver Kamau-Imani.

Justice, 1^st Court of Appeals District, Place 5

About 92% of cases stop at the Court of Appeals level. So it’s important. There are nine justices, on three-judge panels.

There are four candidates in this race. I am told Terry Adams has the most appellate experience. I met him in January and liked him. The other favored candidate is James Lombardino, who I’ve also met a number of times. He’s older, friendly, quite experienced, will be aged out in about four years, I think he said. He represented that as a plus, because he won’t be trying to run again, so he can easily be impartial. But I’d prefer good experienced justice that can hold onto it for a while. So, I’m going with Terry Adams.

Harris County District Attorney

The incumbent Democrat, Kim Ogg, has been a disastrously bad DA. Whoever can get us out of the mess she has created, I’m in favor of. So I will support whoever is the Republican nominee.

There are three candidates: Mary Nan Huffman, Lori DeAngelo, and Lloyd Wayne Oliver. I’ve met the two female candidates; I don’t recall meeting Oliver. I liked both DeAngelo and Huffman. They were in the same candidate forum and were respectful toward each other. Huffman seems very young, although impressive. I felt more confidence in DeAngelo. My former assistant DA friend prefers DeAngelo for her experience as a prosecutor. He’s also concerned about Huffman’s youth, as well as her being “too cozy” with the police. While it’s a good thing to always support law enforcement, the DA is often required to investigate the police. Can she stand up to them when necessary, is the question. Huffman is getting a lot of the endorsements on the matrix, but DeAngelo gets them from those I know to be conservative. So that gives me confidence in voting for Lori DeAngelo.

Harris County Sheriff

There are three candidates for sheriff: Paul Day, Randy Rush, and Joe Danna. This is one of the more important races on the ballot, but I’ve heard less from these candidates than from sheriff candidates in other years. We have a Democrat sheriff right now, and replacing him would be a good step in the right direction.

I believe I met Paul Day almost a year ago but haven’t heard from him since. Joe Danna came to our January Tea Party candidate forum. I liked him well enough, although my notes show very little about him. My former assistant DA friend voted for Rush. He offers this insight I hadn’t seen elsewhere:

I met him while investigating a case. He’s very experienced. He struck me as a person of strong convictions who would do the right thing regardless of what others thought. His opponent will probably win, but the big knock on him is he got fired for falsifying a legal document saying he had served a subpoena when it was proven conclusively that he had not.

He added that Danna’s experience was with another agency, while Rush served for a long time with the Sheriff’s Office, which is more helpful in getting to work on day one.

The matrix is almost entirely for Danna. Nevertheless, based on this close-up recommendation, I’m giving my vote to Randy Rush.

Harris County School Trustee, Position 5, At Large

I’m going for Fred Flickinger. He seems to have good experience. He’s never run for office before, but he’s handled large budgets in a logistics business, and also has experience running a smaller family-owned business. I don’t know his opponents, Bob Wolfe and Connie Dubroff. I guess it makes a difference for a candidate to come out and meet people.

Harris County School Trustee, Position 7, At Large

The two candidates are Don Sumners and Kay Smith. Sumners gets the endorsement across the matrix. I can’t remember now what position he’s held before, something school related. I have nothing against him and will support him if he wins. Kay Smith has been on the HCBOE before, stepping down in a run for state House rep (which she managed legally, without the disturbance to the board caused by Flynn’s leaving). She’s dedicated to getting rid of this artifact of an old system, which is a way to spend money and control curriculum without spending a dime on actual education of any student. Harris County is the only county with a school board. It’s redundant, and anywhere there’s more government than necessary, that’s dangerous. An at large position covers the whole county, but Kay is very local, and has been very active politically for longer than I’ve lived here. So she gets my vote.

Justice of the Peace, Precinct 5, Place 1

I’m voting for Russ Ridgway. If memory serves (it might not) I served as a juror in his court a long time ago. If that was him, I very much approved of his work in that case. Anyway, he’s been doing a good job and is well liked. My DA friend has appeared before him and approves of him.

Harris County Republican Chairman

I’m voting to keep Paul Simpson. He’s been easy to work with and seems to me to be tireless in a job that doesn’t pay. And he seems to me to always be fair to the various differing opinions within the party. I know some people are panicky because we lost the countywide races, but I think that was a side-effect of Obama and Beto ground teams, and not actual change. I don’t think it’s because of laziness or ineffective leadership.

PROPOSITIONS

These are expressions of opinion on the ballot; they do not automatically become law, but they do become a prominent part of the party platform, if I’m understanding this correctly. Vote yes or no for each. They come as recommendations from the SREC since our last convention.

Proposition 1: Texas should not restrict or prohibit prayer in public schools.

Yes, we should support our First Amendment right, as free Texans.

Proposition 2: Texas should reject restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms.

Yes, we should support our Second Amendment right, as free Texans.

Proposition 3: Texas should ban the practice of taxpayer-funded lobbying, which allows your tax dollars to be spent on lobbyists who work against the taxpayer.

This is a little more troublesome. In my very large county, I’m very much in favor of this. It was one of our legislative priorities this past session. However, the fallout on small counties is that the one way they have to lobby against unfunded mandates from the state, which can actually bankrupt them, will be taken away. So I am voting No on this for now, while working on refining the concept to exempt smaller counties and jurisdictions.

Proposition 4: Texas should support the construction of a physical barrier and use existing defense-grade surveillance equipment along the entire southern border of Texas.

Yes. It’s a US government responsibility. If we value our sovereignty, we need this.

Proposition 5: Texas parents or legal guardians of public school children under the age of 18 should be the sole decision makers for all their children’s healthcare decisions including, but not limited to, psychological assessment and treatment, contraception, and sex education.

Yes. Of course. But why limit it to parents of public school children? Because that’s where the conflict arises. But we should just say that fit parents have the right to the care and upbringing of their children.

Proposition 6: Texas should ban chemical castration, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and genital mutilation surgery on all minor children for transition purposes, given that Texas children as young as three (3) are being transitioned from their biological sex to the opposite sex.

Yes. Permanent physical alterations to a child should be considered child abuse. If a child reaches adulthood and wants to make those decisions, that is at least their own decision and not the adults whose responsibility it is to care for them.

Proposition 7: Texans should protect and preserve all historical monuments, artifacts, and buildings, such as the Alamo Cenotaph and our beloved Alamo, and should oppose any reimagining of the Alamo site.

There’s a hidden problem with this. I’ve gone over and over the plans for the “Reimagine the Alamo” project. Everything about it is to preserve and protect this historic site. But there are some people who have been coming out against it, it appears to me for political purposes only. They claim they will protect, while the General Land Office is all about tearing down. I don’t know why they’re lying. But moving and restoring the Cenotaph to a better location that will allow better preservation of the Alamo structure and the archaeology there is not “tearing down” either the Cenotaph or the Alamo. Because of that lie, I’m voting No on this proposition, even though of course I am for protecting and preserving all historical monuments, etc.

Proposition 8: Texas election officials should heed the directives of the Office of the Governor to purge illegal voters from the voter rolls and verify that each new registered voter is a US Citizen.

Yes. Of course.

Proposition 9: Bail in Texas should be based only on a person’s danger to society and risk of flight, not that person’s ability to pay.

Wording problem here. There are seven different things to consider, not just danger and flight risk. This would eliminate those other considerations, which are needed. So, No.

Proposition 10: Texas should limit our state legislators’ terms to 12 years.

Yes, I could go for that.