Texas voting issues

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Election and registration information

Voting machines

2008 election

For the 2008 election Texas used the following voting machines in addition to hand-counted paper ballots in some counties. For a county-by-county list of the specific machines (and the source for this section) see Verified Voting's Verifier tool.

Main article: Voting machines

Direct-Recording Electronic (DRE) machines with a paper trail:

Optical scan machines:

Assistive Devices for Marking Paper Ballots

Governmental election authorities

Secretary of State Hope Andrade

Contact information:

  • Elections Division
  • P.O. Box 12060
  • Austin, Texas 78711-2060
  • 512.463.5650 or
  • 1.800.252.VOTE (8683)
  • Fax 512.475.2811
  • TTY 7.1.1

Election threats

  • October 16, 2008. Deceptive emails targeting at Democrats claim voters who chose both a "straight party" option and also specify a candidate of that party will not have their votes count. [1]
  • El Paso County is on the 2008 Black Box Voting Watch List, "due to many recent indictments of El Paso public officials on corruption charges and for obstruction of Black Box Voting freedom of information requests."[2]
  • Collin, Guadalupe, Jackson, Lee, Sherman and Wilson counties are on the 2008 Black Box Voting Watch List because they will be using the Diebold/Premier GEMS system in November. This central tabulation system is the subject of a product advisory. It has been discovered dropping votes, a defect which will not be fixed by the 2008 general election.[2]
  • Texas' remaining 49 counties are on the 2008 Black Box Voting Watch List[2] because,

"... they have been coerced into dependence on a private vendor for all phases of their election administration -- undermining the entire structure of the county election system. Several of these counties have experienced miscounted elections due to unqualified technicians provided by the vendor. Several counties show symptoms of tampering -- such as mismatched results inside the machine; failure to produce "zero" reports (symptom of vote-stuffing); and vote-flipping (votes marked for one candidate migrate to another candidate).

  • October 20, 2008. Obama Texas campaign (2008) issued an e-mail titled "Dirty tricks and bad information in Texas."[3] Excerpt:

    "Dirty tricks designed to mislead Texas voters have been spreading across the state, and many Obama supporters are getting incorrect information about the voting process. Bogus claims about voting machines are spreading via email chains -- and in one reported case, even broadcast on a Houston radio station -- that could have a huge impact on voter turn out on Election Day. Here is the truth that every Texan should know: If you vote a straight Democratic Ticket you will cast your ballot for Barack."

Main article: Voter suppression

State and local non-governmental election organizations

League of Women Voters

LWV of Texas, Karen Nicholson, President

  • 1212 Guadalupe Street, #107
  • Austin, TX 78701-1800
  • Phone: 512-472-1100
  • Fax: 512-472-4114
  • E-mail: lwvtexas@lwvtexas.org
  • http://www.lwvtexas.org/

Local Leagues:


VoteRescue.org

  • Description[4]: "VoteRescue is a non-partisan Texas-based election integrity organization that is dedicated to restoring accessibility, fairness, accuracy and total transparency to the democratic process of voting in the United States."

Articles and resources

See also


References

  1. ↑ Kelly Shannon (October 16, 2008). "Democrats Cry Foul Over Suspicious Email", Associated Press. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 From Black Box Voting, (TX) 2008 election protection Watch List locations, retrieved October 12, 2008.
  3. ↑ Fighting Dirty Tricks, Texans for Obama, October 20, 2008.
  4. ↑ VoteRescue description from VoteRescue website. Retrieved October 12, 2008.

External resources

Poll location

Election Protection hotlines

Voting information

Voting rights

Voting requirements

Election officials, election reform groups, and elected officials

Absentee voting

Disabled voters

Student voting rights

State ballot

  • See how organizations you trust recommend you vote on ballot measures and other statewide contests at TransparentDemocracy.

Languages

  • Help in other languages from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. 中文, 日本語, 한국어, Tagalog, Tiếng Việt, Español

Voting machines

Election law


Voter ID Toolkit

External articles

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