Voter Integrity Vigilance

You’d think everyone would be for free and fair elections. But there’s actually a lot of opposition, with the thinly veiled purpose of making voter fraud easier to do and harder to prosecute.

The Texas Legislature is in session, and, as they say, when the legislature is in session, we’re most in danger of losing our freedoms. So I was very interested in the Ballot Security Committee’s report last Saturday the quarterly meeting for precinct chairs and other officials of the county GOP. This committee is intended to help us move toward free and fair elections.

Alan Vera, doing poll watcher
training I attended in 2011

The committee chair is Alan Vera, who spent four years as True the Vote’s national director of curriculum and Training. True the Vote is the nationwide organization that trains poll workers and poll watchers, as well as examines voter rolls and pushes for prosecution of voter fraud. They started here in Houston. In fact, the building they used to use is where we met Saturday. (You might be familiar with them from news about the IRS attacks on founder Catherine Engelbrecht, who also founded King Street Patriots.)

Vera wrote the curriculum and led training for Texas, Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Arizona, and what he calls “hopeless California.” He was my trainer as a poll worker. Just about anywhere in the US, you can volunteer with True the Vote. If you’re at all concerned about the 2016 election being stolen, getting trained now and having a year or more of training is the best protection. Vera told us, “I’ve seen the worst in American elections. And I’ve seen the best when ordinary citizens rose up to take charge of the integrity of their own elections.”

Now, on the Ballot Security Committee, he’s keeping an eye on the Texas Legislature. The bill that really got my attention is a proposal to offer online voter registration. There’s a bill in the House (HB 312, plus similar bills: HB 76, HB 444, and HB 953) with a companion bill in the Senate (SB 385). Normally you’d think of this as Democrat mischief, but HB 312 is authored by a Republican, a local one we have to keep an eye on. But we’ve had productive visits with her staffer in past legislative sessions, and maybe a little citizen lobbying will persuade her to withdraw her bill—that would leave only four others on this issue to worry about, that we know of.

Vera made a good point about this “gateway to automated voter registration fraud”:

The sad truth is that online transactions are nowhere near being reliably secure yet. J.P. Morgan Chase and Blue Cross/Blue Shield have single year online security budgets many times larger than the COMBINED budgets of the Texas Secretary of State, and the voter registrar of every single county in Texas. But Chase and Blue Cross have their systems hacked every week.

I want to add some perspective to that. Back when the Sony hack was news a few months back, that supposedly came from North Korea, I wondered how that could be. They can’t even feed their people; how could they pull off hacking that technologically sophisticated? So I asked my son Economic Sphere, who has spent the last year paying attention to North Korea from close range. He said yes, they definitely have the skills to do that kind of hack. They spend their time hacking South Korean businesses constantly. Every typical company in South Korea has better online security than even the best corporate online security in America. So, yes, it could happen.

If they can do it, other hackers can do it. And that, I’m certain, is the plan. Sure, it would be convenient to handle yet another detail online. But registration is only a matter of filling out a card with your identifying information—and signing your name to swear that you have answered truthfully—followed by enough office time to allow “trust but verify.” It would be nice to get a driver’s license online and avoid the dreaded hours of waiting for bureaucracy to do its thing too. But, again, how do you verify ID? And what about losing that sensitive information to hacking?

As Vera put it,

I’ll start to consider that online data exchanges are foolproof when the SAT test allows people to take the test online with only a driver license number as proof of identity.

And all you smart lawyers in Austin, I’ll consider online voter registration when Texas allows you to take the bar exam online.

There are other attacks to voter integrity in the Texas legislature. There’s one to have same-day voter registration during early voting. There’s one that wants us to go to great lengths to get felons registered and voting. There’s one trying to add to the forms of ID acceptable when voting (an attempt to dilute last term’s Voter ID bill).

So, we need to be constantly vigilant. In Texas or any other state, you can sign up with True the Vote. Their free newsletters give frequent updates on bill movement in all the states.

The Ballot Security report also included some proactive legislation. They’re pushing for changes to tighten voter assistance, which should never include touching the machine or suggesting a party or candidate; to punish voter ambush by organized groups; to tighten residency requirements for voter registration; and to overhaul the process for collecting ballots from nursing homes and state homes. They’re also attempting to convert several violations into felonies.

As Joe Stalin said, and his followers as a directive, “It doesn’t matter who votes; it matters who counts the votes.” Socialists aren’t big on free and fair elections.

If you want your vote to be accurately counted, and not cancelled out by fraud, now is the time to raise your awareness, keep track of legislation, and volunteer to be a trained poll worker or poll watcher.

Standing Guard

The past few elections I have reported my adventures (here and here) as a poll watcher. I’ve waited a week to gather some information about election integrity as a whole, so I can see my experience in the larger picture. I had the opportunity Monday evening to run into my fellow poll watcher and the Alternate Judge, to verify some of their experiences as well.

I volunteer as a back-up poll worker. I show up at headquarters (in this case True the Vote headquarters at the King Street Patriots location in Houston) as soon as I can get there, which with traffic was a little after 1:00 PM.

While I have been trained and qualified several times as a poll watcher, and was signed up online for training, for some reason the system had not accepted my login. Various other trainings, like researching voter databases, were available (some of which I had gone through at home), but the actual Poll Watcher Training wasn’t there for me, and so I couldn’t certify by taking the test online. I had given TTV a heads up by email, and I had prepared at home by reviewing my training from last year.

At headquarters we were still unable to get me online to take the qualifying test, at least in a short timeframe. When we got impatient waiting for a new password to be sent to my email, that I could receive on my phone, we finally decided to have me do the test on paper. (Isn’t low-tech great!) I got 100%, which means my training from past years was pretty thorough. They also provided me with a printed version of the training book for my state, which I should have had access to online, and I was able to take that with me. I also got supplied with other poll watcher helps in a packet.

They were ready to send me into the field as soon as I got credentialed. So we signed the paperwork. I was actually sent out as a poll watcher representing one of the candidates for judge. In Texas each party is allowed two poll watchers per polling location, each candidate is allowed two poll watchers, and any organization involved in an issue on the ballot would be allowed two poll watchers. So it could get crowded if volunteer poll watchers were more ubiquitous. But the goal has been to make sure each polling location was watched, preferably with more than one poll watcher.

Our polls are set up with a Presiding Judge, who runs the polling place; this person is from the party that won the majority in that precinct in the last election (I don’t know whether that means it could change theoretically every two years, or only every four years). Then there is an Alternate Judge from the opposite party. There are usually several clerks; we had four. Law requires the PJ to choose at least one clerk from the opposing party (if a list of such persons is made available), but ours were all Democrats. These are all paid positions—low pay, but they receive something a little above minimum wage for their hours, I believe. The county registrar’s office is the source of the pay, I believe.

Poll watchers are unpaid. Our job is simply to observe the process and report any incidents or irregularities—or to verify the accuracy of the process. Anyone trying to carry out a free and fair election has no need to fear from well-trained poll watchers. We help the process, and our presence tends to make things go more smoothly. Poll watchers do not interact with voters, do not interfere with voters, do not observe how a person votes, other than to watch the process when a voter is being aided by a poll worker, to verify that no influence is taking place.

I was sent to an area in southeast Houston, an ethnically black area, with some Hispanics, and not many whites. The PJ and all of the clerks were black; none spoke Spanish. The AJ and poll watchers were pretty obvious because of our racial difference.

There was only one poll watcher, Patsy, from the beginning of the day. She was there for the setup, with her credentials, well trained. The PJ through a screaming, harassing fit about her being there and hindered her in every way but throwing her out. (I have been sent to replace poll watchers who have been thrown out, so this is milder.) There were numerous irregularities and illegalities before I was sent. I don’t know what those were, except that the PJ insisted on allowing the vote of someone who had been sent a ballot-by-mail and did not bring that with them. Legally, such a person must turn in the paper ballot to make sure it is not counted, if they want to vote in person after all. Otherwise, it would be easy for a person to vote by mail and also vote in person, which would be illegal.

The Alternate Judge, Brenda, handled all eligibility calls to the county, all day, which probably saved us. The PJ said, at one point, “We don’t stand on such formalities here.” Her clerks, though, did seem to me to be doing their best just to do their jobs. We had a number of provisional ballots (not counted votes, but to be reviewed later for eligibility), but not an unusual number.

I was treated respectfully by the PJ and others. Maybe it was having a second poll watcher there that made her take things seriously; maybe she had been contacted by the County about complaints received about her and was told to straighten up. I don’t know; I only know that things were not nearly as bad after I got there as Patsy had suffered early in the day. I took only one 10-minute break, for food, just before 6:00, and during my break a third poll watcher, Linda, joined us through the closing of the polls and counting; it was her first time.

I handled one special case during the day, right after I came back around 6:00. A woman came in with her father, who could neither read nor speak English. No Spanish-speaking poll worker was available, so the woman was sworn in as a poll worker to help her father vote. This is according to protocol and not particularly unusual. The PJ asked that someone who spoke Spanish observe. I was going to do that anyway, but it’s funny that the PJ actually wanted me to closely observe. For the most part, I don’t think the woman was trying to influence the vote, but she did illegally handle the machine. I tried nudging her at the beginning, but didn’t get her attention, so I continued observing. Our e-slate machines have a wheel to move from frame to frame, and then an enter button, and a final “cast ballot” button. She handled the wheel the entire time, and then had the voeter press the appropriate buttons. There were several propositions on the City of Houston ballot, and for a couple of those she simply read the title and said, “You wanted to vote for that, didn’t you?” which, again, isn’t strictly legal. But based on how the rest of the ballot had gone, it appeared to me she was verifying their previous conversations and not telling him how to vote.

When the ballot was cast, I pulled her aside and explained to her about not touching the machine, if she did this in the future, and she seemed to appreciate being told. There was no animosity. I did write up the incident report, but included that I did not think she was trying to act illegally but was simply not well-enough trained. Maybe I should have interfered more forcefully, but it seemed pointless. A man between 50-60 who can’t read (any language) or speak English, but is a certified voter and therefore a citizen—it does not surprise me how such a person votes.

At the end of the day, the official count of signed names was 20 lower than the official count of legal ballots cast on the machines. That is supposed to reconcile; it didn’t. The PJ seemed not at all concerned with the discrepancy. The likely explanation is that someone failed to write the names of voters 20 times during the day. That’s a lot, actually. I was watching up to four clerks at a time, so I could have missed something, but I didn’t notice any voters whose names were not written on the list. The AJ said she would let the county know of the concern, and I wrote it up on an incident report.

Here’s why I’m concerned about such a small thing. The national vote difference was 2,828,267 (by the count I saw Monday evening). The number of polling places nationwide is approximately 250,000. Divide the vote difference by the number of polling places, and the result is 11.3 votes per polling place.

  2,828,267      vote difference

÷ ±250,000      polling locations

_________________________

              11.3 votes per polling place 

There is another thing I noted about voting day. I voted at my precinct late morning. The first 2-hour count posted on the door was, as I recall, 232. I left probably just before the 11:30 count was posted, but if that held throughout the day, then you’d expect about 1392. So that is my perspective of what was normal on Election Day, in addition to early voting.

At the polling location where I watched, the counts were as follows:

 9:30     117

11:30    227      (111 votes since 9:30)

 1:30     364      (137 votes since 11:30)

 3:30     432      (68 votes since 1:30)

 5:30     549      (117 votes since 3:30)

 7:00     670      (121 votes since 5:30)

There were no extraordinarily long lines. Sometimes all the booths were full and people were waiting to vote. But generally the clerks were able to keep up with the flow of incoming voters. There was no line at closing. In fact, the final half hour was very slow. Two people walked in a few minutes after 7:00, and the clerk turned them away, because they had not arrived by the closing of the polls—this was appropriate.

Word across the country was that the Democrats had taken full advantage of early voting. However, in Harris County (where Houston is), Republicans clearly outnumbered Democrats in early voting. But Democrats won the Harris County vote because of their Election Day turnout. And yet in a highly Democrat area, I saw light voting, about half the size of the vote in my home precinct. That’s anecdotal, I realize. But you can imagine my surprise when I got to my car around 8:45 PM and turned on the radio to find out that everything was other than I had seen. Odd.

I had expected to be able to do my report as well as talk about fraud generally in one post. But this is enough for one day. There’s more to say about the value of free and fair elections, but I’ll save that for another post.

Voter Suppression, Really?

I’ve written here several times about poll watching in an effort toward free and fair elections, including just last week, plus here, here, here, here, and here. But today I’m writing once again, this time in response to an inflammatory piece in last Friday’s Houston Chronicle: “Partisan tactic could suppress voting,” by Judith Browne Dianis and Christina Sanders.  

First, these authors call Texas’s new Voter ID Law suppression. In the past, including last week’s election, voters could use utility bills, banks statements, paychecks, and their voter registration cards to verify their ID for voting purposes. So a voter’s name must appear in the voter roll book (must be registered), and must show that their address is still what is listed in their registration—thus the utility bills, etc. But it has been possible (and has happened—did indeed happen at my poll watcher trainer’s location last year) that a voter can come in with these documents and vote in someone else’s name. Then the real voter—identified by photo ID and voter registration card—can come in later in the day and find that they cannot vote, because the voter roll shows a signature in their spot. That voter has now been disenfranchised. That actually happens. The new Voter ID Law will prevent that. 

Does anyone get disenfranchised for being unable to get an ID? The law has gone out of its way to specify various ways to prevent any such disenfranchisement. So far it has been impossible to find a single legal voter unable to obtain a photo ID, what would be needed to cash a check or just about any other private transaction. Whether a person drives or not, having a photo ID is something people use almost daily. The law specifies how to handle homebound situations where travel to get ID is difficult. So the law simply does not disenfranchise a single legal voter. It prevents disenfranchisement. 

Then the authors accuse people like me, volunteer poll watchers, of intimidating voters. They seem to be confused; voter intimidation is what the New Black Panthers have done, well documented but not prosecuted by this administration’s Department of Justice. The piece words the accusation this way: 

To complement the voter suppression efforts, tea party-affiliated groups such as the Houston-based King Street Patriots have vowed to send individuals to observe activities at polling places, which could intimidate voters. Hundreds of volunteers have pledged their time to travel to polling stations, question the rights of fellow Texans to cast their ballots and disrupt polling-place activity if they deem it necessary. The idea of tea party volunteers storming polling places evokes strong images of Jim Crow-era voter suppression. 

I didn’t live in the South during the Jim Crow era; I don’t know what evokes those images. But it would take a huge imagination to assume what poll watchers do is in any way related to voter suppression. And the authors must know this. 

Let me just say that I did not, and was trained not to, disrupt polling-place activity. There is no “storming.” One or two poll watchers (maybe up to four at a very busy polling place) show up with credentials in hand, have these signed by the election judge, then place themselves where they can observe unobtrusively as possible, and have no interaction at all with voters. Usually this begins during the set-up before the polling place opens. Voters won’t much notice the poll watchers; they will just look like they have a job to do that doesn’t include interacting with voters.  

There is no voter intimidation taking place. There is no interaction with voters; poll watchers can be ejected for even talking with a voter. They do not generally make eye contact with voters; they are standing or sitting where they can see the voter rolls or the machines. They never stand near a voter in the booth except possibly when a clerk or judge is helping a voter. Then the poll watcher does not watch how the voter votes, but only verifies that the worker is not touching the machine or influencing the voter. Poll workers influencing voters while assisting voters was one of the most common violations in 2010; there were hundreds of such incidents. Unwatched poll workers were used to committing this violation without consequence. 

Poll watchers are overseeing the process, making sure the rules are followed, so that the votes cast are legal and that no legal voter is disenfranchised. Any polling place that is carrying out a free and fair election has that verified by poll watchers. 

Poll watchers are not a new part of the law. In Texas each party is allowed two poll watchers per polling place. Each person on the ballot is allowed two poll watchers per polling place. Any group advocating a position on an issue on the ballot can provide two poll watchers per location. That could become quite a crowd. The reason it doesn’t is a matter of volunteers. Poll watchers, unlike election judges and clerks, do not get paid, so interested parties need to feel the need to verify the election enough to recruit volunteers. The effort to cover all polling places, even those with no previous complaints, shows that the effort is toward verifying free and fair elections, not suppression of legal votes. 

The authors argue that this is a partisan effort. No. King Street Patriots, which they identify, willingly trains anyone from any party. Oddly, the only ones taking them up on it are conservatives. But they are not attached to the Republican Party. KSP has helped train election judges, who are sent by the parties and certified by the county. So far only the GOP has accepted KSP trained judges, but the training would be the same for either party. Neither party has sent KSP-trained poll watchers. So far all poll watchers sent by KSP have been sent by the signed request of candidates on the ballot. I think historically both parties have a dark history of voter fraud, but in recent elections the guilty have been almost exclusively of one party, the one against being watched. 

The authors claim, “Voter fraud is not a problem in Texas. You are far more likely to be killed by lightning than to see a prosecutable case of voter fraud.” Notice the careful wording. It’s not that voter fraud isn’t happening, or even known. It’s that it has to be prosecutable. In order for that to happen, there must be eye witnesses. The witnesses need to turn in incident reports swearing that they observed the fraud. There has to be a poll watcher there to do the witnessing, which these authors are insisting shouldn’t be there. And then there has to be a justice department willing to prosecute when the evidence is there.

In 2010 King Street Patriots found, just in Harris County, some 20,000 fake names on the voter rolls—because they looked. And then they turned in some 800 incident reports following the November 2010 election. Only some of them are prosecutable as fraud; many are simply observed violations of procedure. A likely outcome in a serious case is probably an election judge making numerous purposeful violations being removed from employment in future elections. 

Look at the incident of someone using a utility bill and voting in someone else’s name. It isn’t possible to find out who that illegal voter was; the real voter is disenfranchised, but unless he has a suspicion of who might have snatched his utility bill (maybe a family member, or maybe a stranger with access to the mailbox), then how can there be a prosecution? 

I refuse to be intimidated just because someone accuses me of storming a polling place to disrupt and suppress voting like some Jim Crow bigot. I know the truth, and I know I am working toward free and fair elections. And now I know that these authors and the organizations they represent (Advancement Project, and League of Young Voters Education Fund) are against truth and free and fair elections.

Practice at the Polls

What would election day be without a threat that the police were coming to remove me? It seems to be becoming tradition. But, still, I have reason to believe things are getting better. 

Yesterday was a good practice day for poll watching. Turnout was low on an off year, although within the city, where I served, the mayor’s race and city council positions were on the ballot. I was sent in mid-afternoon till closing to give a second pair of eyes to an area that was having some difficulties. I wasn’t given details, just that things were confusing. 

The presiding judge was experienced, had been running the place for nigh onto twenty years. Not used to poll watchers, however. She wasn’t sure there could be a second poll watcher (there can be two from each party and two from each candidate on the ballot). 

The presiding judge (PJ) was an elderly woman, 77 she told me later. Not all elderly people are equal. She was energetic and trim—despite suffering an encounter with a city bus this past weekend, which she described to me later in the day during down times. But much of the difficulty at the site was related to her belief that she knew what she was doing and asserting her authority without actually knowing the laws and procedures. She confided to me during down time that the training they gave (her party?) turned out to be all different from how things really are. 

She was going to place me at the far corner of the room, where I wouldn’t be able to see much or hear anything. So I said, no, I’d just take this spare chair and place myself where I needed to be. I wasn’t able to see the voter roll books from where I was, but I could get up and look as needed, and I could hear everything. 

This was a mostly Hispanic area. The alternate judge (AJ) was at a disadvantage. The PJ and clerks (one of whom was the PJ’s very helpful and effective son), as well as the other poll watcher all spoke Spanish. I don’t look like I speak Spanish, so they probably didn’t realize it, but many of the encounters between voters and clerks were in Spanish, so that was handy. 

Most of the conversations were about names and addresses. And many (more than half) of the voters were at the wrong polling place. In Harris County (Houston area), there are two weeks of early voting at a few dozen voting places. Voters can vote at any location during early voting. But on election day voters must vote only at their precinct’s polling location. This particular location had been available to everyone for two weeks of early voting, but was there on election day only for a single precinct. That apparently caused a lot of confusion. So the clerks spent much of the day trying to help people figure out where they should go to vote—something they probably couldn’t have spent time on during a busier election.  

But there was no attempt to allow voters to vote illegally at this location. As a poll watcher, I am there to verify their good faith efforts, just as I would report attempts at illegalities. So for anyone working to have free and fair elections, having poll watchers there is to their advantage. 

We missed a couple of things. When ID address doesn’t match the address in the voter roll book, the voter is required to fill out a statement of residency. Then their vote is counted only after their eligibility is verified. Last year we ran out of those forms, we had so many such voters. Yesterday we didn’t use any SORs. But I know of two voters that should have used them. There were so many issues about wrong addresses for this polling place, it didn’t immediately sink in what we were seeing. So when we realized (after the voters in question had left) and brought it to their attention, the clerks were determined to do it right if it came up again. It didn’t. 

That’s the kind of thing that experience helps with. I’ve had more experience now. So have those clerks and the other poll watcher. We’ll all be better prepared during a more critical election next year. Other poll watchers got training and practice this year too. And poll workers got more used to having poll watchers on hand. 

OK, about the police threat—it happened again at the close of the polls. The other poll watcher left ten minutes before the polls closed, not sure why. But I was there to observe, so I didn’t worry about it. But the PJ said, now that there were no voters, I had to leave. She claimed twice to have called the county, with differing answers, neither of them accurate, and once claimed the police were on their way to remove me. But I knew what I needed to do. The AJ and clerks knew and accepted me. So I went about my business, verifying numbers on the machines, etc.  

Somewhere along the way the PJ saw that I wasn’t interfering in any way, and she had no support from the other workers in her efforts to keep me away. Plus, of course, no police actually came. A while later she came to me and apologized. She reminded me of the pain she was in from her accident, and said she saw she had been rude and asked if I forgave her. Next year, if she’s there again, she’ll expect a poll watcher to observe the closedown.  

This is a huge improvement over my adventure last year. So, I hope I’m getting better experience ahead of serious need. And I hope judges and clerks at all the various polling places are getting better with practice as well. Because the goal, as people who love our freedom, we all want a free and fair election.

Boring Is Good

I spent the afternoon and early evening as a poll watcher yesterday. There are two weeks of early voting in Houston, ending Friday, with over 30 polling places. Voters can go to any polling place during early voting, unlike on voting day when they have to vote at their precinct location. During early voting, computers identify their ballot, which differs depending on city limits, school district, etc. It’s an off year, and voter turnout is light. But it was yet another opportunity to establish poll watchers as a regular, expected part of an election. This means many poll watchers will be both trained and experienced before the more critical presidential election next November. So I volunteered. I plan to work again next Tuesday, on the regular election day. 

I was sent to the polling location that has Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s office upstairs. Word on the street was that she had illegally shown up at the polling place twice last week, but things had been quiet since. Very quiet. Which is a good thing. 

Unlike last year, I did not sense animosity from the presiding judge and clerks, several of whom had worked at this early voting place for a number of years. They seemed content to have us there, instead of accused. There was good humor between clerks and particularly the other poll watcher, who was on the second of three days in a row of her volunteering. 

At one point there were two voters who had come together. One finished before the other and then came and stood behind the other. A clerk was immediately up, informing the finished voter to leave the voting booth area. He joked with us and said, “I had to do that before you two wrote me up.” He was on it by the time I noticed a need, and he wasn’t really worried about us; he was just doing a good job, with a smile. 

The comfortable camaraderie is what you would hope would be the result of people of differing opinions and parties both wanting free and fair elections. 

My poll watching partner told me things had been pretty boring. I brought books and food; I could keep myself occupied. One of my sons does guard duty, and we wish him a boring evening as he leaves for work; that means nothing serious happens, which is a good thing. A boring polling place means that free and fair elections are taking place. Wishing for adventure is wishing for bad things to happen. We hope that our being there will certify that those bad things aren’t happening. So, yesterday that meant mission accomplished. 

The biggest challenge was that, while it was nearly 80 degrees outside, inside there was a cold 60 degree wind. We wrapped ourselves in everything we could find. The cold sunk into the bones. When we took a restroom break, we would run our hands under the hot water long enough to thaw. This is one of the biggest weather challenges in Houston—freezing from air conditioning. So, it made my uneventful afternoon feel more like a sacrifice. But I don’t need it to be hard; I just want to be useful. I’m glad I had that opportunity to serve.