Recently, the Texas Democratic Party filed this response brief in the U.S. Supreme Court, in Dallas County v Texas Democratic Party, 10-755. This is the case in which a 3-judge U.S. District Court said that Dallas County needed approval from the Voting Rights Section before making a change in its vote-counting equipment. The Democratic Party had originally sued the county because the vote-counting equipment causes some voters to think they have finished voting, when in reality they have only voted in a single partisan race. This happens when some voters first use the straight-ticket device, and then vote separately for one particular candidate from that same party. That action erases the straight-ticket’s effect, and the voter sometimes is not aware of what has happened.
Dallas County had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the 3-judge court decision. The U.S. Supreme Court had then asked the Democratic Party to respond. The Court will probably say in March whether it will hear this case.
What MORONS did the programming on the vote-counting JUNK ???
Folks from outer space or Elephant spies ???
It is a bit more complicated.
Dallas County had precleared its new voting equipment. Twice, actually, once when they started using it for early voting; and a second time when they started using it for precinct voting.
On the previous equipment, punch cards, if you punched a hole in the card, you could not undo your vote. You had to go get a new ballot card and start over.
On the DRE equipment, you undo a vote by selecting the candidate a second time. It works just like a check box in a typical GUI. Click to select. Click again to deselect. If you want to change your vote to a different candidate, you simply vote for the new candidate, and the original choice is deselected.
In Texas, when you vote a straight ticket, you can override it on individual races.
So you can vote a Democratic straight ticket, and then select individual Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, and Independents. Or you can make a redundant vote for Democrats. In the olden days on paper ballots, Republicans would be instructed to vote for the party and also the individual candidates, so it would be harder for the Democrats to change the votes. Democrats characterize this as an “emphasis vote” as a voter emphasizing that they really like a candidate so much, they voted for them twice.
But on paper ballots and punch cards, there is no way to not vote in an individual race, if you have voted a straight ticket, other than writing instructions on the ballot. That is, it is difficult to actively abstain, for example if you want to vote for every Democrat except your ex-brother-in-law, but don’t want to vote for a Republican.
On a DRE voting machine, when you select a party with the straight ticket, it pre-selects all applicable party candidates. This helps you find races in which your party does not have a candidate, or in which the straight party vote does not apply, such as special elections, or nonpartisan races.
So if you click on the straight ticket box, and then go down to another race, you will see that your party’s candidate is already selected. If you click on the candidate that has already been selected, the vote for that candidate is cancelled – just as it would be if you had not voted straight ticket or it were a non-partisan race. If you have voted a straight ticket there is a warning.
If you then look at the review screen, it will say something like:
Straight Ticket: Democratic
Governor: No Vote
Lieutenant Governor: Debbi Demo(D)
Attorney General: Rodney Repu(R)
Here, the voter clicked a redundant second time on the gubernatorial vote, left the vote for Ms. Demo alone, and overrode the straight party vote in the AG race.
If you had an equivalent paper ballot, it would have an “X” next to the Democratic Party, No “X” next to any gubernatorial candidate, and an “X” next to Demo and Repu. This would be counted as a vote for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate.
On the other hand, if you had only voted for the Straight Ticket (“Vote 1, and You’re Done” or “Vote 2, and You’re Through”), the review screen would show that you had voted for all the Democratic candidates. The paper ballot would only have an “X” next at the top of the party column, and no indication how the rest of the ballot.
What you have is an irreconcilable conflict between a static form like a paper ballot, and active computer interface which is intended to help you not make mistakes.
The Democratic Party had previously sued Travis County over similar issues and lost. Travis County uses a different DRE from a different company, in which one navigates screens with a dial similar to a 1950s rotary telephone, and with buttons to select a candidate. Dallas use a touch screen system.
In November 2008, there was an extremely close Texas House race in Dallas County. An issue was votes in which no candidate had been selected for the House Race, but the straight ticket box had been selected. The Democratic Party filed suit, claiming a violation of Sections 5 and 2 of the VRA. The Section 5 claim was that Dallas County had implemented a change in how votes were counted without USDOJ preclearance. It was not that the equipment had not been pre-cleared. The Section 2 claim was that this was racially discriminatory.
The named defendants included Dallas County and Bruce Sherbet, in his role as Dallas County Elections Administrator, an appointed position in which Sherbet had served since 1987. In (most?) other counties, elections are administered by a partisan elected official. There is only one “r” in Mr.Sherbet’s name, though the Democrats added an “r” to spell it like the dessert. One of the lawyers for the Democrats was Clay Jenkins.
The 3-judge panel of the district court dismissed the Section 2 claims, but found in favor of the Democrats on the Section 5 claims. Dallas County filed for pre-clearance of the “changes” which was granted by the USDOJ last spring.
Meanwhile the case has been going back and forth over attorneys costs, with the Democrats claiming about $105,000, including around $20,000 for Clay Jenkins.
In November 2010, Clay Jenkins was elected Dallas County Judge. In Texas, the county judge is not a judicial office but serves as head of the commissioners court, which is the executive body for a county. There are also county judges at law, who hear lesser cases (below the district courts, but above the JPs).
Jenkins took office on January 1, 2011. The district court entered final judgment on January 7. On January 24, Dallas County (and Sherbet) filed their appeal to the US Supreme Court.
Also on January 24, now-County Judge Clay Jenkins called a meeting of the Dallas County Election Commission. The only authority of the election commission is to hire and fire the Dallas County Elections Administrator (ie Bruce Sherbet). The commission does not have the broader review authority that election commissions have in other locales. The Dallas commission is composed of the county judge (Jenkins), the county clerk, the county tax assessor, and the county chairmen of the two major parties (that made nomination by primary). Incidentally, the Dallas Democratic Chair is Darlene Ewing.
The commission had not met since 1987 when it named Sherbet as elections administrator (the legislative provisions for the office date from 1985).
On January 25, Sherbet met with John Wiley Price, a county commissioner who is “black”.
On January 26, Sherbet resigned saying, “I don’t want to work under these conditions, where the county judge (Jenkins) and the most powerful person (Price) in the county are against me for no legitimate reason. I love my job, but I’ll go do something else.”
Jenkins issued a statement, misspelling Sherbet’s name as it had in the original lawsuit.
“It is my understanding from media reports that Mr. Sherbert will offer his resignation. I wish Mr. Sherbert the very best in his new endeavors. Fair and accurate elections are extremely important. Every eligible voter must be able to vote and their vote must be accurately counted.”
“We will work with the Texas Secretary of State and the Justice Department to ensure the Dallas County Elections Department is the best it can be.”
Sherbet says that he first heard about the plot to remove him from his long-time assistant Antoinette Pippins-Poole (who has now been named Elections Administrator) who heard it from Price’s top assistant.
After Sherbet met with Price he agreed to resign after the May elections. Price met with Jenkins, and then met with Sherbet and slid a resignation letter giving a March 1 date. Jenkins has claimed that he did not “authorize” anyone to seek Sherbet’s resignation. And though he may have “understood” from media accounts that Sherbet had resigned, doesn’t mean that he didn’t know from other sources.
It was a February 15 public meeting of the commissioner’s court where the issue of Sherbet’s force-out was at issue, and which John Wiley Price made his “You’re all white, Go to H3__” remarks (Google it).
Dallas County claims that because the court had dismissed the Section 2 claims, that they should not have been subject to Section 5 (Section 5 requires an affirmative declaration from the DC Court of Appeals that any change in voting procedure does not have discriminatory purpose or effect, with the alternative of getting preclearance from the USDOJ.
Alternatively, they want Section 5 declared unconstitutional, since it has nothing to do with discrimination, and is simply rote proceduralism.
If you noticed the Democrats brief argues that the case is moot since Dallas County did file for preclearance which the USDOJ granted, and all they want is the case to be closed and for them to collect their legal fees, including the $20,000 for Clay Jenkins, Dallas County Judge.
In RATIONAL States having straight party voting —
The individual office box ALWAYS prevails over the straight party box.
Who will liberate Texas from the MORONS in the State regime ???
How about dumping ALL of the DRE stuff in the local trash dump to recycle it into something useful ???