When Does Incompetence Become Cover for Intentional Wrongdoing?

This is going to be a debrief of our Harris County election last Tuesday, which was pretty much a disaster.

In a pair of press conferences over the weekend (Friday here and Monday here), Harris County Republican Chair Cindy Siegel listed some of the problems:

·       Double booking election workers to the same polling place.

·       Telling election judges who were planning to work that they weren’t needed, instead of sending them where they were needed.

·       Delivering equipment to the wrong places—even to a place that wasn’t even a polling place.

·       Missing equipment.

·       Equipment that didn’t work.

·       Delivering the wrong size paper (the very long ballot required two legal-size pages; they sent letter size to some locations).

·       Poor training, delivered late in the process.

And more.

from left, Alan Vera, Sen. Paul Bettencourt, Cindy Siegel,
Marga Matthews, and Steven Mitby,
screenshot from Friday's press conference

First today I’ll debrief our polling place, which, because of our experience, handled problems relatively smoothly. But—there was a lot the County did that made things more difficult than they needed to be.

Then I’ll cover a bit more of what happened countywide that has led to a lawsuit asking for the resignation of the unelected bureaucrat hired to run our elections “more efficiently.”

 

Our Polling Place

We got to run our usual polling place this time. But back in November, we waited and waited for the County to give us our assignment. When they finally did, they assigned us to another place about 20 minutes away, and assigned our polling place to some random Democrat judge. Traditionally, the party with the majority of votes in the previous election gets to run that place, so I was entitled to it as precinct chair. But since the Democrats took over County government in 2018, they have been trying to marginalize precinct chairs and prevent our connection to our voters. So this wasn’t that surprising.

That November election—a low-turnout election with very little on the ballot—was our first experience with the new paper ballot system. It was a good one to practice on. The system is built by the same makers as the previous eSlate system: Hart. We don’t use Dominion anywhere here in Texas; too many flaws. This paper system was first used last May’s special district elections. But our area didn’t have anything on the ballot, so we didn’t experience it then. Anyway, this election is the third round for the County to be using it.

This system, in theory, is pretty good. Nothing is connected to the internet except the ePollbooks—the tablet we use to identify registered voters, which we’ve been using since around 2016. We use photo ID to check them in. A driver’s license works best; it has a code on the back that can be scanned to bring up their registration, which works pretty well. Other forms of ID—or none of those, under certain circumstances—can be used for those without a driver's license. Some of those we have to type in the information and do a search of the voter rolls. When that doesn’t work, the presiding judge handles it with a call to the County to verify a person’s eligibility.

Once the person is checked in, we print them a code to use at the voting booth. In this system, the machine is called a Duo. They can enter their code in any Duo tied to the Controller that printed out their code. They then insert the paper, just until it catches; it hangs out. They make their voting decisions on the touch screen of the Duo. Once they’re ready, the Duo prints the ballot. It is heat-sensitive paper, which makes it permanent and difficult to duplicate. Once the ballot is printed, the voter goes over to the Scanner, a totally separate machine, and inserts the ballot. The Scanner records a digitally-scanned image of the ballot, saved in a sealed part of the machine, and the paper ballot is dropped into the ballot box below. So the digital scans are quick to count at the end of the voting day, but the paper ballots are available for comparison in case of a recount.

In theory, that’s all good. There are some physical difficulties. The Duo machines are prone to misfeed the paper. If a voter inserts the paper very carefully, with two hands and a lot of patience, no problem. But in real life paper frequently misfeeds.

Add to that, this past week’s ballot required two legal-sized pages—have I mentioned that we have the longest ballot in the country? There were 99 choices (89 races plus 10 resolutions) on the ballot. You need to insert the first page and let it hang out of the machine while you make all those choices on the touch screen. You need to do something with that second sheet of paper. We instructed voters to place it carefully alongside the privacy screen at the side of the Duo. But if a person held it in hand, or let it get scrunched or bent, is was more likely to misfeed. We were suspicious that some machines were more likely to misfeed than others, maybe because paper that had gotten stuck earlier left scraps inside that got in the way. But we were pretty busy running an election to verify that.

For every paper that got scrunched, we had to replace the paper and reprint that page—and we accounted for each spoiled page, and identified on the voter on the judge’s tablet. Those spoiled pages got placed in an envelope for that purpose and were returned to the counting center with the judge’s box at the end of the day.

This was a problem everywhere and kept us busy. We had a sense there were more Republican spoiled ballots than Democrat—but then we had a lot more Republican voters. So it’s hard to know whether the percentage was comparable, or whether our equipment was more often malfunctioning.

The real problems of the day—all around Harris County—were at the Scanner. Sometimes the Scanner wouldn’t scan a page. This happened if the Duo misprinted or smeared. This could easily happen if a Duo only slightly misfed but came through eventually and the voter didn’t notice. It could happen if a voter thought the Duo was finished printing and gave the paper a tug just a tad too early. Anyway, it was a vulnerability. It happened a number of times at our location, but nowhere near as often as the Duo misfeeds.

When the Scanner would not scan a page, we could place the unscannable page in the emergency ballot box, attached; those ballots would be hand counted at Central Counting at night. We followed procedure at the end of the day, placing those unscanned ballots from the emergency box into a special envelope for the purpose, and then sealed them inside the Scanner—which has a coded seal related to chain of custody, as all counted materials do.

But the County changed procedure during the day. Not entirely. We still did all the right things. But this was such a problem for so many polling places, with workers new to the equipment, that they feared people would not follow procedure and would leave those ballots inside the ballot box container.

We broke down the ballot box container as trained. We took out the gray ballot box from inside, made sure there were no stray ballots fallen elsewhere in the box container (there weren’t), and sealed the ballot box. We took the ballots out of the emergency box and placed them in their special envelope, sealed inside the Scanner machine, which was now separated from the box container. And we folded up the box container, which was completely empty of ballots, and placed it on the rack with the other voting equipment—and sealed the rack.

We got to our counting location about 9:40 PM (more below on why it took so long to get there). At 10:10 PM my husband, the presiding judge, got a text—that we didn’t see on his phone at that time—instructing us to remember to bring the black, folded up ballot box container with us to the dropoff location. When we got to the front of the line another 15 minutes or so later, we had everything in order—except no black empty folded-up ballot box container.

It turns out they had sent a text to the tablets—the ePollbooks, but the presiding and alternate judges keep theirs separate to do their other duties—sometime early afternoon. We were busy all day and did not notice the text. It’s not obvious when a text has come in; you have to remember to go look for them.

So at the dropoff location, the official from the County is saying, “That’s on us. We own that. We should have communicated better.” But how do they take accountability for that error? They try to send us back to our polling location in the middle of the night, where we would have to break the seal on the equipment, and retrieve that item, and bring it back to them; but they would let us skip the line when we returned, so kind of them. It was going to require my husband calling the school contact to have them call the custodians to come to the door and let us in to do that—when we knew there were no ballots left inside, because we had followed the appropriate protocol as trained. So we didn’t go get it. Which meant we also didn’t leave the rest of the equipment unsealed, so that’s good for us.

That statement of “It’s our fault; we own that—but we’re making you make up for our mistakes anyway” was a theme of this election.

My husband picked up his equipment on Saturday at the appointed time. Lines got long later, despite appointments, but weren’t too bad for him. He had been warned they were a couple of hours behind at the beginning of the day, so they had adjusted all appointments until they could catch up. They called back on Sunday for him to come and get more ballot paper. According to the explanation, someone had miscalculated and planned for only the amount of paper for one per voter—when each voter needed two. But we actually needed about five times what they’d originally given us. It worked out, but it was an additional inconvenience. Fortunately the pickup location was only about 15 minutes from home.

equipment pickup line on Sunday, February 27
photo posted on Facebook by Robert Jeter III

On Monday night, before Election Day Tuesday, we needed to set up our equipment. We were given a spare orchestra room at the middle school where we usually run our polls. But we shouldn’t have to run a primary election in the same smallish room as the other party. Two years ago, slightly pre-COVID, we did it with a lot of inconvenience. My husband tried to get the school to allow them to use the hallway outside the room—which is already gated off from the rest of the school, so there’s no contact with students. The school said no, so we knew we were stuck. He had tried multiple times to find out who the Democrat PJ would be, to coordinate. There was none by Monday night.

It took about 2 ½ hours to do our setup—this is all so that the morning setup only takes another hour and a half, so we can open at 7:00 AM. The Democrat equipment was there, but was not set up.

He had his alarm set for 4:30 AM, to get to the polling place at 5:30, to be ready for the 7:00 AM start. At around midnight he got a text—asking him to run both the Republican Primary and the Democrat Primary—with no additional staff. He happened to wake and see the text, but at that point there wasn’t anything he could do to prepare.

The priority was to set up our polling place and then do what we could. This required the equipment setup that should have been done Monday night, plus getting the equipment turned on. He managed to get six Duos set up for the Democrats—in addition to the 14 Duos for Republicans. There were more Duos, but not more workers. We got a high school student technician, who was hired by the Democrats to report length of line every so often during the day—at the same $17/hour as the other clerks. We used her, under our supervision, because we had to, to run the Democrat Controller, checking in voters and handing them their codes. Late in the day we got a seventh Duo connected to their line. There were times when three to five Democrats waited in line for an available machine. Rarely did Republicans have to wait. We had more than double the number of machines, so we handled the higher number of voters (about 100 more Republicans than Democrats by end of day).

It took beyond 7:00 AM to get theirs open to voters. A couple of voters got told to vote elsewhere. Another stayed, seeing ours was getting close, because she’d already been to two other locations that weren’t yet open. Much of our delay was because their ePollbook tablet wasn’t working. It required the County to reset it remotely, but that couldn’t be done until their help line wasn’t busy and we could reach them.

So we handled all their voter instruction, machine help, and the extra take down of their polling place at the end of the day. And all the paperwork. Everything. For no extra pay except the extra hour or so that it took us to close down at the end of the day.

There was an explanation that the two county party chairs had consulted and worked together to help each other. So, at some polling places where Republican judges had quit at the last minute (because they weren’t willing to be blamed for running an election with the wrong equipment, etc.), Democrats stepped in, and vice versa. Except—ours didn’t quit at the last minute; they never hired one for our location. And, if we’d been told even a day earlier, we could have done that setup Monday night.

 

County Problems

Alan Vera, screenshot from here

This past Saturday we held our precinct conventions, at locations by House district, and I ran into Alan Vera, head of the HCRP Ballot Security Committee and national election expert. I asked him if we were going to debrief this election. I told him we didn’t have big fraud, but we had some problems. And he said, essentially, what I heard him say later, in today’s press conference. It was in response to a question about how the HCRP was characterizing the problems: incompetence, or intended to influence the outcome. Alan said,

I am wrestling with the question directly related to your comment. The question is this: At what point does election incompetence become the perfect camouflage for election malfeasance? Incompetence because, on equipment pickup day, dozens of judges, both Republican and Democrat, left the pickup point with no ballots at all to run the election. Nothing. But, at least as of right now, only Republican judges were given the wrong ballot size, so that their voters voting on the wrong ballot size, 10 to 13 of their votes at the edge of that 8 ½ by 11 paper will never be counted.

And there's at least 140 voters so far, that we know of, who lost those votes. On Election Day, scores of Republican and Democrat judges had to deal with equipment that didn't work. The Duos wouldn’t boot up; the Scanners wouldn’t scan. That was widespread. But it was only three Republican judges who got to their polls and found there was no equipment at all. Their voting equipment had been delivered to another location, which wasn't even a polling place.

So the question you asked is a good one. At what point does election incompetence lead to election malfeasance? We'll keep digging until we find out.

Let’s add a couple of other details. Longoria asked for an extension to the 24-hour counting requirement. This is law from the 1950s and 1960s, not some new legislation from just last summer. Every previous election official has been able to meet the requirement. She finally got the count done, and certified that all the votes were counted. And then, I think it was Saturday, said (paraphrased)—"Oh, by the way, there’s another 10,000 mail-in ballots that we found that we hadn’t counted. Oops!"

No election official should ever be allowed to get away with “finding” ballots after the counting has been completed. They had one job. Finding uncounted ballots means they failed in that job. It’s a complicated job that requires planning and experience—which this unelected election administrator does not have, but was nevertheless hired by Lina Hidalgo without Republican approval, and without even unanimous Democrat approval.

We had high voter turnout on the Republican side. That was good. But we had polling places that didn’t have enough voting machines for Republicans. They are not interchangeable with Democrat machines on Election Day; setup is different. At one location, 300 Republicans were in line to vote at 7:00 PM; they stayed until all voted, as they are entitled to do, which took until 11:00 PM.

Did we mention that the Director of Training was fired two days before the start of Early Voting? While it ought to be happening far ahead, most training for Election Day workers happens during those two weeks. In fact, they were so late at appointing us—despite our giving our intention to serve months in advance—that the first week of training dates was over by then, and all possible trainings were at bad times (during our church on Sunday was when my husband had to do Judge training) or a long drive to the south end of the county. The training, we thought, was actually improving, now that we can do it in person—and they limit ADA training to the few minutes of necessary info. So I’m not sure why the Director was fired.

So, there were all these issues affecting voters who want to cast their votes. And do they own up to the problem? No. They blame voters for incompetence (don’t know how to put the paper in). They blame presiding judges for incompetence. They blame last summer’s election law changes—which apply to mail-in ballots, which were part of Early Voting count, not Election Day count—different places, different procedures entirely. They even claimed, “See, the errors were found; that means the system is working,” as if that vindicated them. By the way, it was the Secretary of State that found the discrepancy of those 10,000 votes, not Longoria’s “system.”

central counting taking place, screenshot from here

What we have is an absolute mess—followed by a coverup.

What we need is for this to never happen again.

We have a small countywide election coming up in early May. Both parties have a runoff election May 24. We need things fixed by then. But, even more importantly, we need things fixed before the high-turnout November midterm election. Last Tuesday’s disaster was with a 15% voter turnout. What happens when we get a 50% voter turnout?

Senator Paul Bettencourt suggests that we get rid of Hidalgo’s unelected election bureaucrat and return the duties of county elections to the County Clerk. Currently the County Clerk is a Democrat. Bettencourt, a Republican, is making that suggestion. Anyone has to be better than Longoria and crew. And we need someone accountable to the people, with some kind of stake in keeping us from being the worst run election of any large county in the nation.

The lawsuit is intended to force Longoria and her crew to resign or be fired. While that is necessary, I look forward to a day we can return our elections to a Republican County Clerk, with experience and integrity. We miss those days.

Fools Rush In

While it is difficult to grasp all that’s going on in our world today, there is this certainty: there’s a lot of evil going on.

I can’t even summarize well. But here’s the bare bones outline:

Putin threatened for a long time and finally invaded its neighbor Ukraine. Putin is not part of Western Civilization; we should not expect him to think the way we do.

map found here

Ukraine is one of the top ten most corrupt countries in the world. I don’t know if that includes their current elected leader, who was an entertainer, not a politician, and whose election seemed to surprise everyone. Is he part of the corruption, a puppet of it, or a hindrance to it? I don’t know. But he does seem to be inspiring his people to stand stronger than expected.

Our current president is deeply involved in Ukraine’s corruption (remember this); that should be considered in evaluating anything he or his administration says on the subject.

Putin may be an evil power monger, but he is also against the worldwide Great Reset cabal; he’s an interference in someone’s programs, and having an excuse to get rid of him might be part of their planning.

Parts of Ukraine are ethnically Russian. It appears the people in that region would like some level of independence or representation. I’m picturing as Quebec in Canada, or as any one of the United States. It does not follow that those people would prefer being under Putin’s dictatorial regime, simply because Putin is Russian.

It appears to me that neither Ukrainians nor Russians—the people, not the governments—want war. They are the ones suffering for decisions of leaders they cannot control.

Back in 2014, Russia invaded Crimea, without consequence. Those who allowed him to do that are the very ones saying how wrong he is to do this.

image found here

Our country’s leaders just very recently botched our exit from Afghanistan, for no reason beyond either their foolishness or their purposeful effort to weaken America and strengthen those who hate us. There are still abandoned Americans there. Such leaders should not be given any support in sending our troops and treasure to a far-off nation that is not a direct danger to us.

However, our country set up Ukraine for this situation. As J. D. Vance pointed out,

Our leaders foolishly pressured Ukraine to give up their nuclear arsenal in the 1990s, which stripped them of their leverage to deter an eventual Russian invasion. These supposed “experts” wrongly predicted that these moves would deter Russia instead of provoking them; on this, as with so much else, they were catastrophically wrong.

Putin cannot be threatened by a possible acceptance into NATO of Ukraine. NATO is strictly defensive, so it is no threat to him—unless he is on offense. Allowing Ukraine into NATO only binds us, the major component of NATO, to step in militarily, rather than helping in less kinetic ways.

US oil independence was a deterrent to Russia. We had that—until Biden got in, shut down the Keystone Pipeline, meanwhile greenlighting Russia’s Nord Stream 2 oil pipeline to Europe, and quickly made the US oil dependent again. Purposefully.

Meanwhile our own southern border is kept open, with record numbers of illegal aliens flooding in. We cannot seriously consider sending troops across the world to defend someone else’s border when we do not defend our own.

All of this is to say, I am only in the beginning stages of learning about this situation, and I have not reached any personal conclusion about how the Ukrainian people should be helped. They should be helped. Let us—our churches, our nonprofits, whatever resources we have—find ways to help the beleaguered people who are suffering.

image found here

But our nation’s resources and resolve are and must be limited while we have the current regime in power. Calls from either Democrats or Republicans (and both are calling) to rush in militarily are premature at best, and possibly intended to further weaken America.

Below I have collected some of the voices I’ve been reading and hearing—very little of any sort of mainstream news, which I have learned I cannot trust to tell the truth about anything, let alone something so momentous. I’m finding more and will continue. But these below I have found useful in gaining information, history, and perspective.

 

Written Resources

·         “J. D. Vance Issues Statement on Russia Invasion of Ukraine” full statement, February 24, 2022. 

·         “An Unserious People Confront a Serious Man” Erick Erickson column, February 24, 2022. 

·         “Ukraine: Putin's Misadventure Unites the West” Larry Elder column, March 2, 2022. 

·         “The War in Ukraine” Glenn Greenwald, February 24, 2022. 

 

Video Resources

·         “Ep. 102: Russia Invades Ukraine? Canada Off the Rails! Olympics & MORE!” Viva & Barnes livestream, February 27, 2022. 

·         “Ukraine: Why It Happened and Why It Matters |Dr. Kori Schake” We Hold These Truths podcast, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, March 1, 2022. 

·         “The ACTUAL State of Our Union: Wars & Rumors of Wars... | Glenn TV | Ep 175” Glenn Beck Special on The Blaze, March 2, 2022. 

·         “Is Putin Dying?” Mr. Reagan podcast, March 1, 2022. 

·         “Russia, Ukraine, and the West | Frederick Kagan| The JBP Podcast | #230” Jordan Peterson interviews Frederick Kagan on the Jordan Peterson podcast, February 28, 2022. 

·         “How Israel is THREATENED by Russia's Ukraine Invasion | Watchman Newscast” Erick Stakelbeck on The Watchman podcast, March 1, 2022. 

·         “What you don't know about the war in Ukraine” сФилином (translates from Russian as “with Owl”) podcast, February 25, 2022.  

·         “Ukraine-Russia PROPAGANDA Revealed in MEDIA as WHITE HOUSE Prepares for SOTU” Robert Gouveia podcast, February 28, 2022. 

·         “Putin's mind, is he mad?” Dr. John Campbell podcast, with Vlad Vexler, February 28, 2022. 

·         “Vladimir Putin: Body Language Reveals REAL Anger to Ukraine and USA” The Behavior Panel podcast, March 2, 2022. 

·         “Victor Davis Hanson | War in Ukraine” John Anderson podcast, March 2, 2022. 

Grassroots Power—Texas Style

Remember this foundational principle from our Declaration of Independence?

Governments are instituted among men,

deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That is literally true in our constitutional republic—if we can keep it. Tuesday is Primary Election Day here in Texas, after two weeks already of early voting. It’s the midterm year, not the presidential election year, so there’s lower turnout. That means those who participate have more say in who our candidates will be—for Congress, for Governor, Lt. Governor, judges, and all the rest.

We have the longest ballot in the country here in Harris County. It took three posts a week or so ago to cover all the contested races.

But having a voice, as the governed, is more than electing leaders—and holding them accountable. It is also about expressing our ideas, to let the elected officials know how we want our state and country to be governed. There’s a process for letting them know, and we’re about to go through that today.

 

The Two-Year Cycle

Let’s start with the two-year cycle. A lot of people think of the four-year presidential election cycle. But, at least here in Texas, we go through a whole process every two years.

from a presentation developed by Bill Ely
for the HCRP Training and Development Committee,
which I used and adapted for the Cypress Texas Tea Party on February 19

In odd-numbered years we have our legislative session: mid-January through the end of May. There may be special sessions called (three in a row this past year, and still there was business left undone). But mainly we just have that 4 ½ months every other year. Which is good, since our freedoms are at risk whenever the legislature is in session. It takes constant vigilance to keep government in check, at every level.

When the session is over, we begin the primary season. Candidates begin their campaigns, which get fully underway by late fall filing deadlines. Here in Texas our usual Primary Election Day is the first Tuesday of March—this year that’s March 1. This ends the primary season—except for those races that had multiple candidates in which no one got over 50%; then there’s a runoff, this year set for May 26. And I expect there will be more runoff races than usual this year.

As soon as the Primary Election is over (excepting runoffs), the convention season is underway. There are multiple levels of conventions. The most local is the Precinct Convention, sometimes called a precinct caucus, or just precinct meeting. A few weeks later, the next level is the Senatorial District or County Convention. In areas like Harris County, there are multiple state senatorial districts in the county, so we don’t do it by county level. In less populous areas of the state, this level may be done by county. Then comes the State Republican Convention—this year held in Houston, in June. In presidential election years, there’s a national convention, but we’re not having one this year, so the state is this year’s top level.

Overlapping the convention season is the general election season, getting ready for that vote in November. Then, in January after that November election, the newly elected legislature is back in session.

 

Conventions—General Purpose

So what happens at a convention? The basic agenda is the same regardless of level:

·         We choose delegates to the next level up.

·         We put forth resolutions for the platform.        

There may be speeches and celebrations, and other necessary party business. But those are the two basic agenda items for every convention.

So, let’s look at each of the levels where grassroots people will be attending this year.

 

Precinct Convention

In past years, in this county, we’ve held our precinct convention on Primary Election Day, after the polls close, at the precinct polling location. A few years ago the county went to countywide voting. This is a great convenience for voters, but it hinders local politics. We don’t necessarily get to see our precinct voters at the polling location in our precinct—if there even is one within the precinct. And besides, many voted during the two weeks of early voting—which can be any of the polling locations in the county. So how do we let people know about the meetings?

Plus, since precinct chairs were often the election officials, how do we get the polls closed down, the materials delivered to the counting locations—and hold a meeting at the same time? Last year we got new voting equipment. The process kinks are still being ironed out. We got a practice run at the low-turnout election in November (ours was just school board races). We learned that closing down the polling location is more time-consuming than it had been before. And delivering materials to counting was an hours-long nightmare. (This time they have returned to multiple dropoff locations, so that may help shorten that part of the process.)

Anyway, doing the precinct meeting at the polling location on election night has become nigh unto impossible. So we’re doing our precinct conventions another day: this Saturday, March 5, if you’re local and interested in participating. Instead of at the polling location, the Harris County Republican Party has set up multiple locations according to state House districts. All the precincts belonging to that House district will meet at a location together and then break out into their separate precincts. (If you’re here in Harris County and want to know your location, the list is here.)

It used to be that the precinct chair would receive the packet of precinct convention materials when they picked up their voting materials. This year the packet will be handed to them at these House district locations. All of these meetings are open for registration at 8:00 AM, and meetings start at 9:00 AM—expect them to last about an hour.

Once the precincts get together, they follow a script that is in the packet. You identify all participants and make sure they are qualified to participate. To qualify you must have voted in the Republican Primary that just took place (and, of course, not voted this year in any other party’s primary); or, if you didn’t vote, you can take an oath of affiliation. In other words, only Republicans get to participate in Republican conventions.

Someone has to lead the meeting. So the setup is for someone, usually the Precinct Chair when available, to get things underway. This is the Temporary Precinct Convention Chair. She appoints a Temporary Secretary and any other needed officers (such as a sergeant-at-arms). Then the first order of business is to elect permanent officers. These are often the people who were temporary officers, who just continue on in official capacity, but they do not have to be. And these permanent positions are only for the business of this meeting. (The elected Precinct Chair—not to be confused with this Precinct Convention Chair—continues on with his/her duties beyond this meeting.) Elections—with brief campaign speeches, when necessary—can put in place any officers the precinct convention participants choose.

This is all done by Roberts Rules of Order. While it sounds official and somewhat intimidating, in practice it can be very simple and somewhat casual—as long as rules are followed. If two people show up, one ends up being the chair and the other the secretary, and they move forward with business. Most of the precinct conventions I’ve attended have had from 5-10 participants. Some less. One I attended had a couple dozen, but that was a rarity.

 

Electing Delegates to the District Convention

First order of business, then, is to elect delegates to the District Convention. It is my experience that the number attending is far less than the number of delegates the precinct is allowed. This is determined by a formula based on the number of Republican votes for governor in the past election. It’s done according to state party rules, and the packet shows the number, so you don’t have to do the math. For example, if you’re allowed 20 delegates, and you have 5 people at your precinct convention, all of you can go as delegates. If by some oddity, you have more people at the convention than delegates allowed, you can send alternates as well. If you’re allowed 20 delegates, you’d also be allowed 20 alternates—which means 40 attendees at your Precinct Convention would be allowed to go to the District Convention. Alternates might not have voting power at that convention—unless a delegate doesn’t show up. Then they would be seated as a regular delegate. But they could participate, regardless, in any activities not requiring voting, such as platform discussions.

Can you be a delegate at the District Convention, if you didn’t attend the Precinct Convention? Good question. You must be elected as a delegate at that Precinct Convention. However, if you know ahead of time that you cannot attend the Precinct Convention, but you know you want to attend the District Convention, you can contact your Precinct Chair, or another person planning to attend your Precinct Convention, and let them know you would like to be a delegate, and they can nominate you. If there is opportunity and the attendees are agreeable, you can be elected in absentia. You’d need to make sure they had your ID information to turn in with their report.

 

Platform Resolutions

So, about those platform resolutions. Once you’ve settled your delegates, that’s the next order of business. Did anyone bring any resolutions they’d like to put forward? If yes, then they present what they have, and the convention participants vote on whether to approve each resolution or reject it. Records are kept of both accepted and rejected resolutions. In my experience, 3-5 resolutions is a typical number. Some people bring a stack of resolutions passed on to them from friends or activists in other precincts, but they had better be able to present and defend anything they bring or it’s a waste of time. Having an idea come from multiple places is intended to show that the idea has much grassroots support. But a good idea from one single person can strike a chord and work its way up to the state platform.

At a meet-and-greet with Mark Ramsey, whom I’m supporting in the new Congressional District 38 race, he talked about seeing an idea from his precinct work its way all the way up to the national platform.

It’s suggested that you bring three copies of your resolution: one for yourself to read from, one for the Precinct Convention Chair, and one for the Secretary. Resolutions can be amended by the participants, somewhat casually, as long as rules are followed. You can even come up with a new resolution on the spot—just write it on a piece of notebook paper.

That said, there is a format, which helps lay out ideas:

Whereas: This is one reason behind our idea;

Whereas: This is another reason behind our idea;

Be It Resolved: We want this to happen.

The essential part is the “be it resolved” part—even if you just say it straight out without any formality. That is the part that would be put in the platform if accepted at the higher levels. The “whereas” clauses are giving background reasoning. When you’re in your precinct, presenting a resolution, you can say why you think it’s important, or why it should be said in a particular way. But once it is passed up the chain, people working on the platform may want to know your reasoning. If it’s there in your original document, that’s helpful to their decision-making process. But, again, if you have an idea, just spit it out and get it in some written form your precinct convention agrees to. That’s all that’s necessary.

The election of delegates and approving of resolutions should take about an hour. Maybe less, maybe a bit more, depending on size and agreeableness of your group. Once adjourned, the Precinct Convention Chair and Secretary get all paperwork copied and turned in to the County party officials as instructed. And they may want to coordinate communications about the upcoming District Convention to those who were elected as delegates.

 

Senatorial District or County Conventions

The agenda at this convention will be the same: elect delegates to the next level convention, in this case to the state convention; and work on resolutions for the platform.

At this level on up, the temporary officers do a lot more work up front. There are people handling credentials, and setting up the bigger logistics of a larger convention. In some past years we’ve held our Senatorial District Conventions at separate locations. This year we’re going back to a central location at which we will meet in separate rooms for just our districts. This helps save money on location rentals, and facilitates candidates who want to address the multiple conventions—going room to room, instead of traveling all over the county. This year ours will be held on March 26 at the Norris Center, near Town & Country (scroll down to info here).

 

Electing Delegates to State

If you want to be a delegate to the State Convention, there’s a good chance you can make that happen, but there may be competition. Usually each precinct gets to send just 2-3 delegates and 2-3 alternates. If there are more who want to go, they can try to be appointed as at-large delegates. Once you get to the State Convention, most—maybe all—of the alternates will be seated as regular delegates. If they’re not, they can be paired with a delegate and, whenever that delegate cannot be on the floor (needs lunch, or needs to be doing business elsewhere), that alternate can be seated and vote in their place. So don’t feel like an alternate isn’t important; you’ll probably act function as a regular delegate, likely for the whole State Convention.

 

Platform/Resolutions Committee—Temporary and Permanent

Those resolutions you turned in at your Precinct Convention—there’s a temporary committee, appointed by the Senatorial District Chair (or County Chair in those more rural places), who gather them, categorize them into the part of the existing platform they would pertain to, and go through each one. They try to make sure each new idea is addressed and considered. There could be hundreds, maybe even thousands of resolutions. Many will be exact duplicates, or will be similar ideas. The Temporary Resolutions (or Platform) Committee will meet to do all this gathering and sorting, along with thinking and rewording.

In large districts like the one I’m in, the Temporary Resolutions Committee will do a complete version of the platform, showing changes to existing planks and the new planks added. Many other districts or counties will just put forth a number of resolutions, in the same way as at a Precinct Convention, rather than a full platform. Either way, all this work is done in the few weeks between Precinct Convention and District Convention.

At the actual District Convention, the body elects permanent officers, which will include permanent committee members, such as these platform people. People who didn’t work on the temporary committee may still be added by the convention delegates, or replace temporary members.

That's me, working on the Permanent Resolutions Committee
at our District Convention in 2020
photo from Pauline Ramsey's Facebook page

During this all-day convention, committees meet for their duties. Rules Committee, for example, might be doing similar early and convention-day work. My experience is with the platform. We meet in a separate room from the body of the convention—while they hear speeches and do other business. (We try to get our votes in as needed—including getting ourselves elected as delegates to the State Convention. It can be hectic.) We’ll have a set amount of time to hear testimony from people who want to support a proposed resolution already being considered, or who want to present a brand new resolution they’ve thought of since the Precinct Convention. The Permanent Resolutions (Platform) Committee hears testimony and then finalizes a version of the platform—which is their Permanent Committee Report. They bring that to the body, which looks at it, discusses it—sometimes at length, sometimes almost not at all—and then votes to accept the committee’s report, which then gets sent up to the state party.

 

State Convention

The same agenda applies—except that this year we won’t have a national convention, so there won’t be election of delegates. There is election of party leadership.

This is a six-day convention. Temporary committees—whose members again are appointed by the Senatorial District Chair (one committee representative per district for each committee)—meet and do the work on Rules, Platform, Legislative Priorities, etc., on Monday through Wednesday. They take testimony and try to come up with their final work product, called the Temporary Committee Report, which will be the starting point on Thursday, when most of the delegates arrive.

During those temporary committee hearings, people can come and testify on issues, to get ideas included that they want, or to get wording the way they want. You don’t have to be a delegate to testify. People can even, again, present an entirely new idea. They have opportunity to testify in separate subcommittee hearings as well as in the committee as a whole.

On Thursday, when most of the delegates arrive, permanent committee members will be chosen. Again, these are usually the ones who did the work on the Temporary Platform Report, but not always. There were some significant changeouts last time, when delegates decided their committee members didn’t hold the prevailing views of that Senatorial District.

The Permanent Committees will have only Thursday afternoon/evening to hear more testimony and finalize any changes to the Permanent Committee Report.

These reports are presented before the entire body of delegates, and are open to floor debate, which can be either very exciting or very boring, depending on issues that come up, and how much the rules of order are used to slow the process.

With Legislative Priorities, the final report comes up with something like 15-16 priorities, which they have narrowed down from around 40 earlier in the week. And then the body votes on their priorities, which narrows it down to a top eight. So that is very grassroots. And we think the innovation of providing legislative priorities is more apt to persuade legislators to do at least these few things.

Platform is usually the last thing to be discussed on the floor. That may be by design. People are tired and ready to go home, so they’re less likely to want an extended floor debate. But another innovation from a few years ago is to have an up-or-down vote on each platform plank. Any plank that doesn’t receive 50% support gets eliminated from the platform.

Other fun things go on at the State Convention. There’s a big exhibit hall, with booths and temporary stores set up. There’s entertainment. Speeches and more speeches, of course. And outside events, like breakfasts and banquets. And lots of new people to meet—just about all working toward greater freedom in our state and country, in other words good people you’d like to have as friends.

In 2018, our kids were also delegates, so we had our
grandkids with us at the State Convention.

Did I mention that the Texas State Convention is the biggest political convention in the country? Possibly in the world. We have up to 9,000 delegates, plus visitors. It’s a big and memorable fiesta—in addition to getting the voice of the grassroots to the people who need to hear us.

It starts at the Precinct Convention. So put that on your calendar, and get your voice heard at least for that hour. 

Whatever state you’re from, there’s some version of this process. Find out what it is, and get your voice heard.

 

 

 

Primary Picks, Part III: Judicial Races and Propositions

This is the third post of three going through our extraordinarily long ballot. In Part I we went through statewide races. In Part II we covered Congressional and County races.

Here in Part III, we’ll be covering just the contested Primary judicial races, starting at the statewide level.

As a reminder, Texas has a two-part Supreme Court. One part is called the Supreme Court; it handles civil law cases. The other is called the Court of Criminal Appeals, which is the Supreme Court level in Texas for criminal cases.

Texas Court System diagram found on Judge Scott Walker's website

Supreme Court, Place 9

The choices are David J. Schenck and Evan Young. Young has the endorsements of Conservative Coalition of Harris County (with 83% of their vote), my SREC committeewoman Deborah Fite, and Texas Home School Coalition. I took a look at Houston Region Business Coalition, The LinkLetter, and Texas Conservative Review; all three went with Evan Young.

Texas Right to Life supports David Schenck, as do Texas Eagle Forum, True Texas Project, and Grassroots America. He has been on the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals (that’s the Texas 5^th Circuit). He claims to be a strict constructionist. But I’m unaware of any reason to particularly challenge a Republican incumbent who seems to be doing well.

Evan Young was appointed to this position on the Texas Supreme Court by Governor Abbott, so he’s the incumbent. I’m unaware of complaints about Young. He has videos on his website from his swearing in ceremony, and he sounds like a constitutionalist. He clerked for Antonin Scalia. His wife, by the way, clerked for Neil Gorsuch.

I’m going to take the word of so many and give Evan Young my vote.

 

Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 5

The choices are Scott Walker and Clint Morgan.

Scott Walker was elected to this position, winning handily. If there’s reason to oust an incumbent, it had better be good. Clint Morgan is not afraid to take on his opponent directly; he lays out some stats on his website that are pretty convincing. Walker lacks credentials and productivity by comparison to Morgan. But then Morgan shows a couple more graphs. One compares Walker to all other appellate judges elected since 1992 who have served 5 years or more; Walker underperforms all of them, by quite a lot. Since his election, most judges have ruled on 35-50 cases, one as high as 60. Walker has ruled on only 18. Morgan’s website claims, “Scott Walker is the least productive judge in the recorded history of the Court.” He also notes that Walker, a former defense attorney, leans toward leniency. You might need to look case-by-case to know whether that assessment is accurate. Morgan is a prosecutor, and a very productive one, from here in Harris County.

comparison chart from Clint Morgan's website

Before taking a look, I would have thought there wasn’t reason to go against an incumbent. But Morgan has the practically unanimous support of all the endorsement lists I look at, including Texas Right to Life. CCHC gave him 100% support. Deborah Fite, my SREC committeewoman, added a comment only on this race, saying, “This race may be the most important on ballot.” Walker lists no endorsements on his website, and I didn’t find any. I’ll be voting for Clint Morgan.

 

County District Judicial Races

Note that, with Democrat sweeps the past two elections, the only Republican judges are appointed ones. There aren’t any Republican judges being challenged in the Primary. And there are only a few races in which there are multiple Republicans running. Those are the only ones I’ll cover here.

 

Family District Judge, 308^th Judicial District

The choices are Todd Frankfort and Michael Patrick Delaney.

I am told by another lawyer who is also running for a judge position that Todd Frankfort is one of the best around, excellent. He’s board certified. And he has a good judicial temperament. According to his website, he “has been selected as a ‘Super Lawyer’ every year since 2012, received the Houston Bar Association ‘President’s Award’ for outstanding service in 2004 and 2012, and received the Houston Bar Association ‘Merit Award’ in 2003.” He has the endorsements from the LINKLetter, Texas Conservative Review, Houston Region Business Coalition, and my SREC representative.

Delaney has been a family law attorney for 26 years in private practice. His website mentions no endorsements, and I found only a 67% vote (not enough for an endorsement) from the Conservative Coalition of Harris County.

Frankfort looks to me like the better pick.

 

Family District Judge, 311^th Judicial District

The two candidates are Gardner Eastland and Ray VanNorman. Many significant endorsements go to Ray VanNorman: CCHC (100% endorsement), Texas Right to Life, Texas Home School Coalition, Texas Conservative Review, my SREC committeewoman. He has strong conservative credentials.

Gardner Eastland has fewer endorsements: Houston Region Business Coalition, BIZPAC, and C Club.

However, when I talked with a lawyer friend, he pointed out that VanNorman lacks experience in the area of family law. On Eastland’swebsite he says, “My Republican opponent has never handled a divorce in Harris County, Texas. In fact, he has never filed a lawsuit of any kind with the Harris County District Clerk’s Office.” Eastland has handled over 500 family law cases in Harris County.

Family law is an area where experience gives better results to families. A wrong decision can ruin lives, maybe for generations.

I feel odd going against the conservative majority here. I think VanNorman must be truly conservative. Maybe civil law would be a better fit for him. But on this one I’m going with the experienced candidate, Gardner Eastland.

 

Family District Judge, 313^th Judicial District

The two candidates are Julie A. Ketterman and Rachel Leal-Hudson, I think.

This race is confusing to me. By the time I got ready to study the race, it looked like this was over. Ketterman had filed suit, saying Leal-Hudson lacked the minimum 250 signatures. Most judicial candidates, by the way, got over 750 signatures, which allowed them to waive the filing fee. Leal-Hudson, I’m told, got into the race late and missed all the signature signing parties. There was a jury trial. Leal-Hudson lost. That meant that, even though the ballot would have her name on it, votes cast for her would not count.

That’s what I thought almost two weeks ago. But since then I continue to get campaign emails. I got a mailer a couple of days ago—those aren’t cheap. And endorsements continue to come in.

I looked up the case. The jury found for the plaintiff, February 4. However, there’s a note that says an appeal has been filed.

I don’t know what to do with this information. Leal-Hudson has endorsements from THSC, CCHC (100%), Deborah Fite, LINKLetter, Texas Conservative Review, HRBC, Rep. Briscoe Cain, PoliceInc, Houston Police Officers Union, and Kingwood Tea Party.

Kettering has 22 years of experience in family and CPS law, and has taught courses on the subject. Leal-Hudson has 11 years of experience in family and CPS law, plus the addition of being the oldest of 19 adopted children, so she has a lot of first-hand experience as well.

I don’t know how to decide this. If there were no court case, I’d probably be swayed by the outpouring of support going for Leal-Hudson. Ketterman didn’t answer the questionnaire for CCHC, so I couldn’t learn more about her. I may go ahead and vote Rachel Leal-Hudson, trusting those who have vetted her, and hope that the court case is resolved appropriately.

 

Justice of the Peace, Precinct 5, Place 2

The candidates are Zee Adam Gire, Bret S. Kisluk, and Bob Wolfe. Bret Kisluk spoke to our Tea Party and was impressive (video here). I haven’t met the others.

Gire is a businessman, not a lawyer. A law degree isn’t required for the job, but understanding of the law would sure help. He has a couple of precinct chair endorsements. Wolfe got the LINKLetter endorsement. Kisluk has endorsements from CCHC (92%), Texas Conservative Review, Houston Region Business Coalition, and my SREC Committeewoman.

I read their questionnaire answers for CCHC.  Gire was unaware that the Justice of the Peace doesn’t do criminal cases (see answer 13). It looks like there would be a steep learning curve.

Norman Rockwell's "Marriage License"

I try not to judge too harshly on grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors, because most people need someone like me to clean up their writing. (Even I could use such a person from time to time.) But Wolfe’s questionnaire answers were remarkably error-filled, enough to be a serious distraction. It says to me that this person doesn’t handle details well. Wolfe also seems to think it’s wrong for Justices of the Peace to spend their time performing weddings. But—the single thing most of us know that JPs do is marriages. There’s a Normal Rockwell painting of a couple going before the JP. He’s an attorney, but he doesn’t have judicial experience.

Kisluk is a part-time municipal judge in three jurisdictions. He knows the law, and he knows how to handle a court docket with proven efficiency. Wolfe brought up that he spends too much time performing marriages, supposedly for the extra money (again, it’s what JPs do) and has even done same-sex weddings. While I would prefer that he didn’t, the law requires that someone be available to do it. I think we would be happy with Kisluk as Justice of the Peace; I’m voting for him.

 

Propositions

These are put forth by the SREC Committee, the two committee members from each senatorial district representing that district at the state level. The propositions, even if approved by the vote, are non-binding. They do not become law. They are intended to direct the next legislative session on issues and policies of importance.

I trust the SREC as a whole. But, as with any legislative body, they are made up of a fairly diverse membership representing different interests and points of view. You do not need to feel required to agree with all these. You might even want to start from the position: convince me to vote for this.

So, I’ll just go through the list and give my impressions. Take it for what it’s worth. Do your own thinking. The numbers after the title are the SREC members voting for, against, or not voting; there are 62 SREC members plus a chair and vice chair who don’t typically vote.

 

Proposition 1: Border Security (61-0-2)

In light of the federal government’s refusal to defend the southern border, Texas should immediately deploy the National Guard, Texas Military Forces, and necessary state law enforcement to seal the border, enforce immigration laws, and deport illegal aliens.

 

This is already taking place. At our expense. I’d like to see a way to get the federal government to pay us back for doing its job. But no one has yet to come up with a way. I’ve offered an idea—have all income tax earned in Texas to go through a sort of escrow account handled by the state of Texas, from which we extract what the federal government should not be collecting; and then we pass along the appropriate remainder. But maybe there’s not a legal way to accomplish it. Anyway, I’m voting YES.

 

 

Proposition 2: Eliminate Property Tax (57-3-3)

Texas should eliminate all property taxes within ten (10) years without implementing a state income tax.

 

Son Political Sphere is absolutely against this; he doesn’t believe this plan—particularly Huffine’s would be anything but extraordinarily unfair to everyone. Do the math. I have heard from people who actually had to move because they couldn’t afford the property taxes on their life-long home that they had paid off. That’s just wrong. So I’m willing to look at alternatives. But, unlike many friends, I’m going to vote NO on this until I can see a plan I feel better about.

 

 

Proposition 3: Vaccine Mandate (61-1-0)

Texans should not lose their job nor students be penalized for declining a COVID-19 vaccine. 

 

This is an obvious YES. Coercion is wrong, which we determined in the Nuremberg Code of 1947.

 

 

Proposition 4: Parents’ Rights and Critical Race Theory (60-0-1)

Texas schools should teach students basic knowledge and American exceptionalism and reject Critical Race Theory and other curricula that promote Marxist doctrine and encourage division based on creed, race, or economic status.

 

Let me edit for clarity: Texas schools should must teach students basic knowledge and American exceptionalism; our schools must  and reject Critical Race Theory and other curricula that promote Marxist doctrine and encourage division based on creed, race, or economic status.

There might be other improvements to make, but in general I like this concept. We did pass a law basically doing this during the past legislative session. Still, in support of the idea I’ll vote YES.

 

 

Proposition 5: Right to Life (61-0-1)

Texas should enact a State Constitutional Amendment to defend the sanctity of innocent human life, created in the image of God, from fertilization until natural death. 

This would codify into the Constitution what the Republicans, and frankly a majority of Texans, want. We already have a trigger bill, outlawing abortion in Texas when/if the US Supreme Court reverses Roe, which could happen this year. Laws, however, can change; it’s harder to amend the Constitution and requires the approval of the people. So this would be a stronger protection. I’m voting YES.

 

 

Proposition 6: Committee Chairs (61-1-0)

The Republican-controlled Texas Legislature should end the practice of awarding committee chairmanships to Democrats. 

I agree with this. I have been told by a representative that the theory was, if you give them some chairmanship where they won’t do much mischief, it keeps them from spending all their energy thwarting Republicans. I don’t think that strategy is working. And certainly any legislator who fled the state to deny a quorum ought to expect no favors from our side. So, I’m voting YES.

 

 

Proposition 7: Election Integrity (58-0-2)

Texas should protect the integrity of our elections by verifying that registered voters are American citizens, restoring felony penalties and enacting civil penalties for vote fraud, and fighting any federal takeover of state elections.  

I support this, of course. I think the phrase “restoring felony penalties and enacting civil penalties for vote fraud” is difficult to understand. They’re trying to say a lot in a short statement, but I need explanation there. I think there must be some we had felony penalties for that were lowered to misdemeanors and we want to restore the felony penalties. Then, also, there are addition penalties (are they all civil?) for other types of vote fraud that don’t yet have penalties attached. Anyway, the intent is good, and this is a resolution, not a law. So I’m voting YES.

 

 

Proposition 8: Gender Modification (59-1-0)

Texas should ban chemical castration, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and genital mutilation surgery on all minor children for sex transition purposes. 

Excellent concept. It’s already in our platform. Plank 246 looks like this:

246.             Gender Identity: We oppose all efforts to validate transgender identity. For the purpose of attempting to affirm a person 21 or under if their perception is inconsistent with their biological sex, no medical practitioner or provider may engage in the following practices:

a.       Intervene in any way to prevent natural progression of puberty.

b.       Administer or provide opposite sex hormones.

c.       Perform any surgery on healthy body parts of the underage person.

I’m not fully satisfied with that wording either, but the intention of both the proposition and this plank are to outlaw permanent sex transition of minors. There have also been attempts to label this sort of “therapy” as child abuse. Anyway, I’m in favor of the concept and will vote YES.

 

 

Proposition 9: Parental Educational Relief (57-0-0)

Texas parents and guardians should have the right to select schools, whether public or private, for their children, and the funding should follow the student. 

I’m strongly in favor of school choice. We also need to make sure that the state does not attach any strings to that funding. You’d be surprised how many Republican legislators don’t believe in this concept and don’t want a public vote that will reveal that to their constituents. I’m voting YES.

 

 

Proposition 10: Freedom of Conscience (45-7-1)

Texans affirm that our freedoms come from God and that the government should have no control over the conscience of individuals.  

Our freedoms—our rights—either come from God or from some fallible human. If it’s a human, such person can take away whatever they have granted. But God’s promises are sure.  Governments are instituted among men to protect our rights, not to grant or deny them. If a government isn’t protecting our rights, that tyranny’s power needs to be taken away and restored to the people. So, I’m voting YES.