Early Voting Summary

By a Collin County Early Voting Alternate Judge (D)

Typically, turnout during the second week of early voting is heavier than in the first week of voting. The turnout pattern for 2008 did not exactly follow the 2004 turnout pattern voting. Week one of 2008 had a slightly higher percentage of daily turnout, so early voting was a bit more front loaded in 2008 as compared to the 2004 turnout pattern. (See daily turnout table below)

Collin County had an impressive 49.9% early voting turnout of the 424,500+ registered voters in 2008, according to figures given on the Texas Secretary of State's website. In the November 2004 election 246,617 (66.8%) of the 369,412 register voters cast a ballot in that presidential election, with 150,001, or 40.6% of 2004 registered voters, voting early in that presidential election year.

Date Of Election Total Reg. Voters Total Votes Cast Total Turnout % of Reg Voters Early Votes Cast Early Vote % of Reg Voters Nov-00 300,426 177,673 59.1% 75,244 25.0% Nov-04 369,412 246,617 66.8% 150,001 40.6% Mar-08 380,570 124,614 32.7% 59,033 15.5% Nov-08 424,500 356,580 84.0% 211,637 49.9%

October Early Voting 2004 Daily Early Turnout 2008 Daily Early Turnout Early Vote Day Daily Hours of Voting Actual Daily Vote Totals Daily % of Total Early Turnout Daily Early Vote Turnout Daily % of Total Early Vote Mon 9 9,137 6.09% 13,900 6.50% Tue 9 9,491 6.33% 15,356 7.30% Wed 9 9,257 6.17% 15,563 7.40% Thu 9 9,090 6.06% 14,734 7.01% Fri 9 10,293 6.86% 17,305 8.23% Sat 12 15,102 10.07% 19,043 9.06% Sun 5 5,524 3.68% 8,188 3.89% Mon 12 13,739 9.16% 18,126 8.62% Tue 12 15,326 10.22% 19,227 9.14% Wed 12 15,621 10.41% 21,780 10.36% Thu 12 16,606 11.07% 23,074 10.97% Fri 12 20,815 13.88% 25,341 11.97% Total 150,001 100% 211,637 100% Final Numbers for 2008 Early Voting

A new CBS News national poll of likely voters (that includes those who've already voted plus likely voters) released on November 1st finds that Obama/Biden leads McCain/Palin by 13 points, 54 percent to 41 percent. That margin reflects an increase of two points in the Obama-Biden ticket's lead from a CBS News/New York Times poll released Thursday October 30th. Nationally, about one in five voters say they have already cast their vote, either in person or through the mail, and these early voters prefer the Democratic ticket by an even greater margin. Obama leads among early voters, who have already cast their ballot, 57 percent to 38 percent, a nineteen point advantage.

Matching the names of people who voted in the 2008 Democratic primary vs. the Republican primary and the newly registered voters with the names of people who voted early through October 30th, we find that the Collin County voting pattern likely follows the national voting sentiment captured in the CBS News Poll.

Democratic 53,263 27.5% Republican 38,082 19.6% New Reg. 102,613 52.9%

The last day of early voting, October 31st, was the biggest early voting day of all, but the official data is not yet available on the Texas Secretary of State's website or from the county elections office. The "New Reg" number in the above table includes all the voters newly registered since the March 4th primary election, therefore party affiliation can not be determined. The general assumption is that a sizable portion of the newly registered voters voted for Obama/Biden.

The early voting experience was challenging for voters and election workers alike this year. The voter registration software application package, that Collin County purchased from Votec Corp. earlier this year and used for the first time in this election to look up voters in the main registration database, malfunctioned from the start.

Newly registered voters who presented their brand new orange voter's registration cards to election clerks at check-in could not be found by the by the "VoteSafe" client part of the Votec application being used by election workers to qualify voters at the polling place. The Carpenter Park Recreation Center Early Voting Location Judge (R) and Alternate Judge (D) quickly understood implications of the software malfunction early on the first day of early voting.

As a work-around solution, the Carpenter Park Recreation Center Alternate Judge phoned the County Elections Office Voter Lookup Hot Line to manually qualify each voter that VoteSafe failed to automatically qualify.

The voter's name and registration certification number was then manually written on the combination signature form and also separately written on a "tally" list so the elections office could later mark the voter's record as "voted." Fortunately, these manually qualified Carpenter Park voters experienced only minor delay of a few minutes in the check-in process. By the close of early voting on October 31 several hundred names had been written on the Carpenter Park "tally" list as "manually" qualified voters.

Unfortunately, Judges and Alternate Judges at a few early voting locations did not immediately understand that the failed voter qualification lookups were due to software malfunction. These Judges incorrectly required otherwise qualified voters to go through the time consuming process of completing a "provisional ballot" form. Voters at other locations were turned away and told to return later.

By the middle of the first week of early voting Sharon Rowe, the Collin County Election Administrator, had instructed all the early voting Judges that voters should not be turned away or told to fill out provision ballots when a voter's registration could be verified by calling the Elections Office Voter Lookup Hot Line.

Few of the new voters who filled out their voter registration cards in late September and early October, who were added to the registration database during October, could be qualified by election clerks through the normal VoteSafe automated check-in process. Thousands of recently updated existing voter registration records and newly added voter registration records in the county's main elections database could not be accessed by the "VoteSafe" application client.

Also read Reports detail Collin County Early Voting problems at the Collin Co. observer.

Second Week Of Early Voting

Updated November 1, 2008

Typically, turnout during the second week of early voting is heavier than in the first week of voting. The turnout pattern for 2008 did not exactly follow the 2004 turnout pattern voting. Week one of 2008 had a slightly higher percentage of daily turnout, so early voting was a bit more front loaded in 2008 as compared to the 2004 turnout pattern. (See daily turnout table below)

Collin County had an impressive 49.5% early voting turnout of the 424,000+ registered voters in 2008, according to figures given on the Texas Secretary of State's website. In the November 2004 election 246,617 (66.8%) of the 369,412 register voters cast a ballot in that presidential election, with 150,001, or 40.6% of 2004 registered voters, voting early in that presidential election year.

Date Of Election Total Reg. Voters Total Votes Cast Total Turnout % of Reg Voters Early Votes Cast Early Vote % of Reg Voters Nov-00 300,426 177,673 59.1% 75,244 25.0% Nov-04 369,412 246,617 66.8% 150,001 40.6% Mar-08 380,570 124,614 32.7% 59,033 15.5% Nov-08 424,500 356,580 84.0% 210,128 49.5%

Sharon Rowe, the Collin County Elections Administrator, has told election workers it is possible that 356,580 (84%) of the 424,000+ registered voters could turnout to vote in the 2008 election. If Rowe's prediction is accurate, it is possible that approximately 146,453 people across Collin County remain poised to vote in their locally polling locations on November 4th. As a rough rule of thumb, each of the 129 Collin County polling locations could see as many as approximately 1,100 to 1,200 voters on Election Day.

		2004 Nov. Election Daily Early Turnout		2008 Nov. Election Daily Early Turnout
Early Vote Day	Daily Hours of Voting	Actual Daily Vote Totals	Daily % of Total Early Turnout	Daily Early Vote Turnout	Daily % of Total Early Vote
Mon	9	9,137	6.09%	13,900	6.5%
Tue	9	9,491	6.33%	15,356	7.30%
Wed	9	9,257	6.17%	15,563	7.40%
Thu	9	9,090	6.06%	14,734	7.01%
Fri	9	10,293	6.86%	17,305	8.23%
Sat	12	15,102	10.07%	19,043	9.06%
Sun	5	5,524	3.68%	8,188	3.89%
Mon	12	13,739	9.16%	18,126	8.62%
Tue	12	15,326	10.22%	19,227	9.14%
Wed	12	15,621	10.41%	21,780	10.36%
Thu	12	16,606	11.07%	23,074	10.97%
Fri	12	20,815	13.88%	24,000*	11.41%*
Total		150,001	100%	210,296*	100%
* - Estimated

Early Voting Experience Challenging For New Voters And Election Workers Alike

The early voting experience has been challenging for voters and early voting election workers alike this year. In a Dallas Morning News report headlined, "Early voters report obstacles at polls," the newspaper says, "At another Collin County station, voters whose names were not listed in the state's new electronic voter database – even some with registration cards – were turned away and told to come back later."

Actually, none of the voters who turned in a new voter registration registration application or change of information form after some point in mid September can not be found by Collin County's new ePollBook system being used by elections clerks to qualify voters when they show up to vote.

This is what went wrong and why election clerks have been calling the election office voter look up hot line so often to manually qualify and check in so many properly registered voters.

The new VoteSafe ePollBook election software package that Collin County recently purchased from the San Diego based election management application software vendor Votec, and is using for the first time in this election to look up voters, works much differently from the old election software the county has used to qualify and check-in voters for several prior years.

The old election software application could access the most current registration data, but the new VoteSafe application can only access an old copy of the registration data created some weeks before the start of early voting.

This year many thousands of new voter registration applications postmarked from September through the October 4th registration cutoff date had yet to be processed when the registrar's master voter registration database was copied to load onto the VoteSafe ePollBook check-in laptops. Election clerks are using those laptops, loaded with the newly purchased VoteSafe election software and old registration data, to check-in voters for the November 4, 2008 election early voting period.

Almost all of the voter registration applications postmarked from September through the October 4th had actually been processed and entered into the registrar's master voter registration database by the first day of early voting. However, election clerks using the new VoteSafe ePollBook software application to check-in voters can see only an old copy of registration information that, by the start of early voting, was already several weeks old.

So, early voting election clerks can not use the check-in computers to directly qualify, perhaps, up to 20,000 newly registered voters.

For these newly minted voters the election the Judge, Alternate Judge or designated "special help" clerk must call the "County Elections Office Voter Look Up Phone Hot Line." Voter ID information is verbally repeated to hot line help clerks who then access the master voter registration database to verbally qualify each of the new voters. The voter's name, registration certification number and other information must then be manually written on the election combination signature form and also again separately written on a "tally" list by the Judge, Alternate Judge or designated clerk so the elections office can later mark the voter's master record as "voted." During the ten days of early voting so far, many thousands of new voters across Collin County have been "manually" qualified to vote using this procedure.

At least one Election Judge and Alternate Judge team in charge of the Carpenter Park Recreation Center Early Voting Location immediately realized the "voter not found" problem was due to ePollBook software issues and started calling the Collin County election office voter look up hot line to manually qualify voters from the first hour of early voting.

Unfortunately, Judges and Alternate Judges at most other early voting locations incorrectly told voters presenting a newly issued orange voter registration card, which VoteSafe could not qualify, that they could not vote or that they must go through the time consuming process of completing a "provisional ballot."

These Election Judges had no idea that the newly purchased VoteSafe check in software functioned far differently from the software they had used for several years to qualify and check in voters. Election Judges expected to find a current voter registration record via VoteSafe for anyone presenting a registration card, even for any just issued cards, because that is the way the process had always worked in the past.

When VoteSafe returned "Not Found" on people presenting new registration cards with, what most Judges likely thought were, usually high registration serial numbers during the first days of early voting, some Judges possibly considered that some kind of voter fraud was being perpetrated -- After all, conservative talk radio commentators have been warning for weeks that Democrats, aided by ACORN, are plotting to steal the 2008 election and that liberal voter fraud is rampant. The lion's share of newly registered voters are likely planning to vote for Democratic candidates.

Still, it is difficult to fault Election Judges for initially being suspicious of these "not found" registration records, even for people presenting a valid registration card, because they were never told about the radical change in software function and election procedure with the adoption of the VoteSafe application.

By the middle of the first week of early voting Sharon Rowe, the Collin County Election Administrator, had instructed all the early voting Judges that voters should not be turned away or told to fill out provisional ballots when a new voter's registration can be verified by calling the Elections Office Voter Look Up Hot Line.

How does this new VoteSafe election software application work?

As the picture shows there are two main component assembles of the "VoteSafe" ePollBook application system. One component assembly of this distributed ePollBook application system is installed on laptop computers used at the polling locations to look up and qualify voters during voter check-in.

The Votesafe configuration on each of these voter check-in laptops includes a copy of the master voter registration database that, by the start of early voting, was signifigantly out of date.

The Votesafe software running on each voter check-in laptop uses its own local copy of the voter registration database to look up and qualify voters to receive a ballot.

Part of the look up information returned to the election clerk, for each qualified voter, is the particular "ballot style" that each voter must be given to vote. (Collin County has 52 unique ballot styles for this election.) Each voter qualified by the clerk to receive a ballot is then marked as 'Has Voted' in the local registration file copy installed on the check-in laptop used by that particular clerk. The laptop prints a label containing the voter's registration serial number and other information. The clerk affixes the label to the combination signature, which the voter then signs. After this check-in procedure is complete the voter is given a ballot card and allowed to mark the ballot.

The other part of the distributed VoteSafe application system runs on the county's election office elections server. This part of the VoteSafe application periodically connects, via a secure Internet connection, with each voter check-in laptop used at each early voting polling location to upload the names of people who are marked as 'Has Voted' in the laptop's registration data file.

New voter registration records added and old records that are updated in the registrar's master voter registration database after it was copied, to be installed on each of the check-in laptops, does not synchronize down to the local check-in laptops laptop computers.

According to data posted on the Texas Secretary of State and Collin County Elections Office websites approximately 20,000 new voters registered to vote in Collin County between March 2008 and September 2, 2008 boosting the total number of registered voters to 403,465. Voter registration drives continued across the county until the October 6th registration cutoff date and a small mountain voter applications postmarked up to October 6th date continued to flow into the county registrar's office every day for several days after the cutoff date. The Collin County master voter registration database contained approximately 408,000 registered voters by Oct 1, 2008, with a five or six day backlog of registration applications still waiting to be processed. The final tally of registered voters will be in the neighborhood of 424, 000 people.

We can, then, conclude that approximately 20,000 new voter registration records have been added to the registrar's master registration data base since the data was copied to be loaded into each of the local Votesafe ePollBook check-in laptops. It is these newly added and update voter records that are not directly available to election clerks through the Votesafe ePollBook system. Election clerks must qualify these voters by calling the Elections Office Voter Look Up Hot Line and then hand write their information on the signature combination form. This results in additional delays for voters who must wait in a special 'Hot Line' lookup voter line after first waiting in the regular check-in line.

Big Texas Turnout In First Week Of Early Voting

"It's hard work working hard" and poll workers across Collin County, and all of Texas, have been working hard to accommodate the crush of early voters. So far, early voting totals are far out pacing the daily early turnout totals of the 2004 presidential election.

More than 1.1 million Texans cast ballots in the 15 most populous counties through Thursday, compared with 655,265 in the top 15 counties four years ago, according to figures given on the Texas Secretary of State's website.

Word has reached some early polling locations that after church services on Sunday many parishioners are planning to go directly to early voting locations as part of a voter mobilization project called "Super Sunday."

Typically, turnout during the second week of early voting is much heavier than in the first week of voting. The table below uses 2004 daily early voting numbers, from the Texas SOS website, and 2008 actual week one turnout numbers to project voting turnout numbers that Collin County election workers might expect for the second week of early voting.

If the 2004 early voting pattern holds for 2008, then Collin Collin might see a 57% turnout, of the 425,000+ registered voters, for early voting. The 57% early turnout number is a "WAG" but this is the number required to make the 2004 voting pattern projection produce numbers close to the actual 2008 early voting numbers so far reported. I don't know - call me crazy...

		2004 Nov. Election Daily Early Voting Turnout		2008 Nov. Election Daily Early Voting Projection based on 57% Early Turnout Using 2004 Daily Voting Patterns
Early Vote Day	Daily Hours of Voting	Actual Daily Vote Totals	Actual Daily % of Total Early Vote	Actual Daily Early Vote Total Turnout	Projection of Daily Early Vote Total Turnout
Mon	9	9,137	6.09%	13,900	14,756
Tue	9	9,491	6.33%	15,356	15,328
Wed	9	9,257	6.17%	15,563	14,950
Thu	9	9,090	6.06%	14,734	14,680
Fri	9	10,293	6.86%		16,623
Sat	12	15,102	10.07%		24,390
Sun	5	5,524	3.68%		8,921
Mon	12	13,739	9.16%		24,751
Tue	12	15,326	10.22%		25,228
Wed	12	15,621	10.41%		26,819
Thu	12	16,606	11.07%		27,289
Fri	12	20,815	13.88%		33,616
Total		150,001	100%	59,553	242,250

Big Texas Turnout On 2nd Day Of Early Voting

Elections officials said Tuesday that more than 340,000 Texans cast in-person or through mail ballots once polls closed Monday in the state's 15 largest counties. That's compared to about 190,000 Texans in those same counties on the first day of 2004, the last presidential election.

In Collin County, voting was brisk, said Collin County elections administrator Sharon Rowe.

Lines several dozen people deep started forming early at voting sites in Allen, McKinney and Plano. "There has been a steady stream of voters all day," Ms. Rowe said.

In 2004 the number of first day election results in Collin County was 9,137 which was 2.47 percent of registered voters. This year the number was 13,900 which was 3.27 percent of registered voters. Second day voting turnout was about the same.

Big Texas Turnout On First Day Of Early Voting

Dallas Morning News
By PAUL J. WEBER / 10/20/2008

Associated Press - Record numbers of early voters packed polling locations from Houston to El Paso on Monday in what officials said could likely be the start of an unprecedented election turnout in Texas.

Anxious voters, many with the nation's crumbling economy on their minds, smashed first-day early voting records before lunchtime...

"If it sustains and continues through the 12-day (early voting) period like this, there's not going to be anything close to compare it to," said Bruce Sherbet, Dallas County's elections administrator.

Read the rest of the story.

Firsthand I can say that first day turnout at at least one Collin County early voting station was very high - Higher than even I anticipated, and I had predicted a blockbuster first day. I had previously posted:

On the higher end of the projections, with a registration count of 426,000 voters, if there is a 80% total turnout with a 47.8% early vote turnout, then 340,800 total votes will be cast for the entire election with 203,628 votes cast during early voting and 137,172 votes cast on November 4th, Election Day, in Collin County. (It is my personal opinion that the higher turnout projection is the more likely scenario. In fact, I will not be surprised if the turnout percentages turn out to be even be a bit higher than suggested here.)

After today I'm starting to think this higher end projection is not nearly high enough!

Go Vote NOW!

Early Voting runs from 8AM October 20 to 7PM October 31 at several locations in Collin County and every other county in Texas. You can vote at any early voting polling place in your county of residence.

Unofficially, it is estimated that the Collin County elections office had nearly 424,000 registered voters by Oct 15, 2008 with a backlog of unprocessed registration requests. The final number will likely approach 430,000 registered voters in Collin County for the November 2008 election. This compares to approximately 381,000 register voters for the March 2008 primary election and 369,412 register voters for the November 2004 election.

In the November 2004 election 246,617 (66.8%) of the 369,412 register voters cast a ballot in that presidential election. 150,001, or 40.6% of 2004 registered voters, cast their ballot during early voting voting of that year.

If the same 2004 percentages of registered voters cast ballots in the 2008 November election, then 284,395 votes will be cast in the entire election, 172,979 votes will be cast during early voting and 111,416 votes will be cast on November 4th, Election Day, in Collin County, assuming the final registered voter count stands at 426,000.

On the higher end of the projections, with a registration count of 426,000 voters, if there is a 80% total turnout with a 47.8% early vote turnout, then 340,800 total votes will be cast for the entire election with 203,628 votes cast during early voting and 137,172 votes cast on November 4th, Election Day, in Collin County. (It is my personal opinion that the higher turnout projection is the more likely scenario. In fact, I will not be surprised if the turnout percentages turn out to be even be a bit higher than suggested here.)

I strongly recommend that if you are a new first time voter who has just registered, you should vote early this year. If there has been any minor snafu in processing your voter registration application, it is usually much easier for the Election Judge to help you resolve the snafu during the early voting period. Every voter, particularly first time voters, should check their registration status on the Collin County or Texas Secretary of State website before going to the polling place to stand in line to vote. If you do not find your name in the voter registration database, you can call the elections office from home to resolve the problem. Check your registration status through the Collin County website here. Check your registration status through the Texas Secretary of State website here.

Please remember to take your Voter's Registration Card with you to the early voting polling place when you vote.

Please DO NOT cut the bar code off of the orange card - election clerks can use the bar code to electronically verify your voter registration status, which makes the voting lines move much faster for everyone!!!

Did you receive your Orange Voter's Registration Card? If you did not receive an orange registration card during 2008, your voting registration record may have been "suspended" or "purged." Check your registration status here.

Related Links:

• Check Early Voting Locations and Time for Collin County
• Touchscreen Voting: A How to Guide for Collin Co. Early Voters
• Lots Of New First Time Voters In Collin County

NYTimes Questions McCain's Health

The Washington Post reported last week that a growing number of doctors believe that McCain's melanoma is "more advanced than his physicians concluded and that the chance of recurrence is consequently higher." Lawrence Altman, a veteran New York Times reporter and one of the few medical doctors working as a full-time journalist, has spent weeks working with the campaigns and medical professionals on a story in Monday's edition of the NYTimes that raises serious questions about the true state of John McCain's health.

Much of the speculation centers on new questions about the status of John McCain's health.

TPM Cafe
We've all noticed John McCain having those "John McCain moments. He gets confused. His thinking is unclear. When he's asked a question, he hesitates for long periods of time and can't remember the question. When he does respond to a question, the one about Corsi's book for example, he gives a diffuse inappropriate answer; "need to have a sense of humor about these things." He now reads everything off small cards and sometimes it appears that he may not know what's going on. Does anyone believe that his condition may be worse than his campaign strategists would lead us to believe?

AmericaBlog
UPDATE: Because the McCain campaign is still refusing to release McCain's medical records, and refuses to say a word of explanation about McCain's strange facial convulsions that have now been repeatedly caught on film in the past few weeks, I'm bumping this post. America deserves to know if John McCain, who is 72 years old and has 4 bouts of serious melanoma, and who has been acting erratically and confused of late, is physically or mentally ill and not coming clean about it.

There are now several videos circulating that strongly suggest there may be some neurological problem causing extreme facial ticks and rapid eye blinking. Americans are clearly interested in knowing what is wrong with John McCain's health.

During a recent campaign speech in Pennsylvania John McCain said,"Across this country this is the agenda I have set before my fellow prisoners," he declared. Then, without even realizing what just came out of his mouth McCain continued to berate Obama saying, "The same standards of clarity and candor must now be applied to my opponent." In the prepared remarks he was to say "fellow citizens" not "fellow prisoners."

This is the kind of mental mix-up that really makes one wonder what is truly going on inside of John McCain's mind - is everything really OK in there?

There have been an increasing number of posting and videos that call for John McCain, who would be the oldest president in history if elected, to fully release his medical records. For a very brief three hours in May, McCain did release 1,173 pages of his medical records to a carefully selected group of reporters. They were not allowed to make any copies or phone calls. Why such secrecy?

Powell Endorses Obama

In an appearance on Meet the Press and a subsequent press conference, former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell threw his support to Barack Obama. Calling for a "generational change," the 71-year-old retired general praised Obama's steadiness during the financial crisis.

"I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities -- and you have to take that into account -- as well as his substance -- he has both style and substance," Powell said. "He has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president."

Powell noted that McCain has been a good friend for 25 years, but expressed disappointment in the "over the top" negative tone of the GOP campaign, as well as in McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the vice presidential nominee.

"Now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president," Powell said. "And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made . . .

...Mr. McCain says that he's a washed up terrorist, but then why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have the robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow Mr. Obama is tainted. What they're trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that's inappropriate. Now, I understand what politics is all about, I know how you can go after one another and that's good. But I think this goes too far, and I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It's not what the American people are looking for..."

...Powell also spoke against the insinuations by some Republicans that Obama is a Muslim, "Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian," he said. "But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America. "

Election Officials Reject Report Of Illegal Immigrants Registering To Vote

The Dallas Morning News
By JOHN RILEY - Saturday, October 11, 2008

[Texas] County elections administrators reject the conclusions of a report alleging that up to 333,000 noncitizens may be registered to vote in Texas, saying there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the Lone Star State.

The report by David Simcox, the former head of a think tank that favors less immigration, said an estimated 1.8 million to 2.7 million noncitizen immigrants in the U.S. may be illegally registered to vote, thereby potentially influencing the outcome of the upcoming presidential and congressional elections.

Using population estimates from the Census Bureau and Texas county registration data, Mr. Simcox calculated that Dallas, Harris, Starr and Presidio counties, as well as others, had higher numbers of registered voters than those who are eligible, which may indicate noncitizens are registered to vote.

But elections administrators said this week that there's no proof that county officials are registering a significant number of noncitizens to vote.

"I don't think we are, and I have no evidence that we have people overregistered to vote," said Dallas County Elections Administrator Bruce Sherbet.

Steve Raborn, elections administrator for Tarrant County, said a two-year investigation by his office of questionable voter registrations in 2004 and 2005 found only three noncitizens on the county voter rolls, and they were later removed.

He said he couldn't completely discount Mr. Simcox's findings. "We probably have some noncitizens on the rolls, just like we probably have some dead people or some felons on the rolls, but it's not a big problem," Mr. Raborn said. "If they're illegal aliens, they're going to stay under the radar."

Mr. Simcox, former executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, said voter registration has become an honor system that lacks tough enforcement and may be easily manipulated. He cited Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Rick Noriega's campaign as a possible motivation for noncitizens to attempt to register to vote in hopes of influencing the election.

With a hotly contested presidential election, there has been a surge in voter registration this year, as well as concerns about fraud and voter disenfranchisement. This week, Nevada officials raided an ACORN office amid accusations that the group, which registers low-income people, had processed fraudulent voter registrations. And The New York Times reported that thousands of eligible voters have been removed from rolls or blocked from registering in at least six swing states in apparent violation of federal law.

Immigration advocates say Mr. Simcox is just trying to inflame people's hostilities toward immigrants and make it more difficult for legally eligible immigrant citizens to vote.

The report "proves the old adage that if you 'torture numbers long enough you can get them to say anything,' " said Angela Kelley, director of the Immigration Policy Center.

"Yes, we need to be vigilant to preserve the integrity of the voting system in America, but there is no evidence ... that finds voter fraud by noncitizens is a problem or legitimate worry, but rather, it's an urban myth."

The county officials said voter fraud was difficult to carry out in Texas because each applicant must submit a driver's license number or Social Security number, which is entered into a statewide electronic database and checked by the secretary of state's office. Applicants are sent a voting card and officially added to the rolls only if there are no discrepancies and the secretary of state's office approves the application.

If there is evidence of voter fraud, local officials are required to turn it over to the Texas attorney general for investigation.

Federal Data Disproves Conservative Spin On Minority Lending Cause Of Mortgage Meltdown

updated Tuesday Oct 14 1:30PM
Federal Data Disproves Conservative Slams On Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac
McClatchy Newspapers
By DAVID GOLDSTEIN and KEVIN G. HALL - October 12, 2008

WASHINGTON — - As the economy worsens and Election Day approaches, a conservative campaign that blames the global financial crisis on a government push to make housing more affordable to lower-class Americans has taken off on talk radio and e-mail.

They've specifically targeted the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the federal government seized on Sept. 6, contending that lending to poor and minority Americans caused Fannie's and Freddie's financial problems.

Federal housing data indicate that the charges aren't true, and that the private sector [that was large deregulated by Republicans, including John McCain] not the government or government-backed companies, was behind the soaring sub-prime lending at the core of the crisis.

Sub-prime lending offered high-cost loans to the weakest borrowers during the housing boom that lasted from 2001 to 2007. Sub-prime lending was at its height from 2004 to 2006.

Federal Reserve Board data show that:

• More than 84 percent of the sub-prime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.
• Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the sub-prime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.
• Only one of the top 25 sub-prime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.

The "turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards [Republican pushed deregulation legislation and no enforcement of the few remaining regulations by the Bush Administration] for U.S. sub-prime mortgages. . .

. . .Between 2004 and 2006, when sub-prime lending was exploding, Fannie and Freddie went from holding a high of 48 percent of the sub-prime loans that were sold into the secondary market to holding about 24 percent, according to data from Inside Mortgage Finance, a specialty publication.

One reason is that Fannie and Freddie were subject to tougher standards [regulations] than many of the deregulated players in the private sector who weakened lending standards, most of whom have gone bankrupt or are now in deep trouble.

During those same explosive three years, private investment banks — not Fannie and Freddie — dominated the [problem sub-prime] mortgage loans that were packaged and sold into the secondary mortgage market.

In 2005 and 2006, the private sector securitized almost two thirds of all U.S. mortgages, supplanting Fannie and Freddie, according to a number of specialty publications that track this data.

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Some background on why the regulations that the Republicans eliminated might have prevented this financial mess.

For the last eight years, the Bush Administration and John McCain have been systematically against any form of appropriate regulation and supervision of the financial system. The ideology was laissez faire, free markets, reliance on self-regulation, which means no regulation.

Regulators' absence was just part of the cause of the housing bubble. The most important catalyst behind the bubble may have been the Federal Reserve's move to keep interest rates near all-time lows for three years, which acted as a clearance sale for lenders and mortgage backed securities packagers, which the banking system deregulation enabled.

The Fed cut its target short-term interest rate for overnight loans to banks, the federal funds rate, from 6.5 percent in 2000 to 1 percent by 2003. Loans for cars, homes and houses were on sale, almost 85 percent off. Cheap credit spurred cheap loans, which increased activity in the housing sector and that fueled the rise in housing prices. The Bush Administration viewed the cheap credit chain of events as fuel for the economy after the burst tech bubble and the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001. Bush dub'ed this the "ownership society" during his 2004 reelection campaign.

Variable rate mortgages, tied to the funds rate, were dirt cheap during the period when the Fed kept its target short-term interest rate at 1 percent. These were the easiest and fastest and most profitable type of loans for lenders and home builders to promote to borrowers.

Banks, home builders and mortgage companies were pushing the dirt cheap "sub-prime type" adjustable or variable rate mortgages to both existing home owners and new home buyers. The faster that each of these entities could get borrowers through the loan process, the faster they could make a profit and "sub-prime type" loans were fast to close.

A variable or adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) is a mortgage loan where the interest rate on the note is periodically adjusted based on the Fed Funds Rate or perhaps other index. The monthly loan payments typically start low and remain lower than regular fixed rate prime loans for two, or so, years. After two years monthly loan payment typically balloon far above the typically payment of a regular prime loan. A certain variation of this type of loan is typically the only kind of loan that sub-prime borrows can get because their credit score disqualifies them from getting a regular prime loan.

The legitimate sub-prime mortgage market makes mortgages (and home ownership) available to a segment of the population that otherwise is shut out of the market. Sub-prime type mortgages are not for the correct loan for everyone. Only those borrowers with some credit problem should ever consider taking a sub-prime, for a well planned short period of time, as part of a plan to repair their credit score.

One of the things that rapidly inflated the sub-prime mortgage bubble (a more accurate term than "housing bubble") is that many borrowers, who were eligible for normal mainstream loans from mainstream lenders were "steered" (fast talked with a slick marketing pitch) into the sub-prime market - The majority of sub-prime borrowers had credit scores good enough that they could have, and should have, been advised to apply for a regular or prime fixed rate mortgage, but they were sold or "steered" into sub-prime type loans.

Prime borrowers were steered to sub-prime type loans because they were easiest and fastest and most profitable for the mortgage lenders, not because they were the best and most suitable loan for borrowers. Most of these commercial mortgage brokers, who heavily pushed these sub-prime type loans, quickly bundled the loans as "mortgage backed securities" and sold them to investors. Selling these bundled loans increased the mortgage brokers' profits and eliminated all their risk, and future responsibility, on the loan paper.

One of the main reason so many borrowers, both prime loan qualified and sub-prime loan restricted, ended up with sub-prime type loans is that borrowers were actively solicited by unscrupulous sub-prime lenders who pitched sub-prime deals that turned out to be "to good to be true."

Sub-prime lenders aggressively marketed to existing home-owners, who already had regular mortgages, and new home buyers alike. Remember all the TV Ads; They pitched that home-owners could take cash out of their properties through a cash-out mortgage refinance to pay off credit cards or home-owners could dramatically lower their monthly payments. New home buyers were allowed make "no down payment" loans or make loans over the true home value, through some slight of hand, and pocket the cash difference.

Most of these sub-prime lenders targeted every demographic group, but some sub-prime lenders did target lower-income neighborhoods where people often need some extra money just to make ends meet. Many occupants of such neighborhoods, who were left out of work when their former employers move were jobs to cheap labor off-shore locations, were very receptive to both the extra cash pitch and the lower monthly mortgage payment pitch.

No one was making it clear to these borrowers that when the Fed, sooner or later, started to raise its funds rates from 1 percent to 5+ percent, the month payments on those "sub-prime" variable mortgages would increase by thousands of dollars. It was the Republican caveat ēmptor (buyer beware) rule of business where government had no role to play to define the rules of the game or referee the game to make sure everyone was playing a fair, transparent and honest game.

After sub-prime home loans were written by mortgage broker lenders, they packaged as "mortgage backed investment securities" and sold to investors. The sub-prime lenders therefore had no reason to care whether the borrowers would or could ever pay on the loans once the rates and monthly payments started to go up - it was immediately someone else's, the investors', problem and risk. Again, it was the Republican caveat ēmptor (buyer beware) rule of business for the securities investors too.

This is where some well enforced government oversight and regulation would have nipped the problem in the bud. The "Truth In Lending" regulation that Conservative Republicans eliminated, with John McCain leading the way, in particular, would have forced the sub-prime lenders to fully explain how the "too good to be true" sub-prime loans really worked.

Other regulations that Conservative Republicans eliminated would not have allowed sub-prime lenders to make loans to people who clearly could not make the monthly loan payments once the interest and payment rates inevitable started to adjust up and up and up when the Fed started raising its Funds Rate. The discarded regulations also would not have allowed commercial mortgage brokers to bundled the "ticking time bomb" loans as mortgage backed securities and sell them to unsuspecting investors.

During the 2003 to 2005 period when the Fed dropped its Funds Rate to 1 percent, the Republican controlled congress could have passed one simple regulatory law to head off the financial melt down. That one simple regulation could have restricted variable or adjustable rate loans from indexing the variable interest rate to the 1 percent funds rate. Everyone knew the 1 percent funds rate would head back toward 6 percent sooner rather later. The Funds rate was going back up, it was inevitable, everyone knew it! The, then the Republican controlled, congress should have, at the very least, mandated an indexed adjustable loan interest rate floor index of 5 percent.

As the sub-prime mortgage bubble rapidly inflated from 2003 through most of 2006, the Republican controlled Congress, blindly following its ideology of free market self-regulation, did nothing to stop or control adjustable rate sub-prime type lending or control what amounted to predatory lending behavior practiced by some mortgage brokers.

Texas Conservatives like Republican incumbent for the U.S. 3rd Texas Congressional District, Sam Johnson, age 78, Republican incumbent for the U.S. 4th Texas Congressional District, Ralph Hall, age 85, and Republican incumbent Senator John Cornyn all supported Senator John McCain's philosophy of deregulation and all voted to eliminate Banking, Securities Trading and Home Mortgage Loan regulations.

The Bush Administration did not even use the few remaining regulatory levers, that Conservative Republicans had not yet legislatively eliminated, to control the problem.

As the Fed raised its Fed Funds Rate from 1 percent in June 2003 back up to 5.25 percent in June 2006 all those variable rate mortgages started resetting to higher and higher interest rates. By early 2007 the higher Fed Funds Rate was starting to ripple through the system and the sub-prime mortgage bubble was starting to burst.

The now 15-month old turmoil began when home buyers with inadequate income to make their constantly increasing "adjustable" monthly mortgage payments began to default on their mortgages. By the summer of 2007 adjustable rate mortgages were resetting at levels that the chain reaction mortgage defaults and home foreclosures became national news.

Even then, the Bush Administration, following its ideology of free markets self-regulation, did nothing to get ahead of the problem even as foreclosures steadily increased from mid-2007 and then soared for most of 2008. Even as home-owners increasingly faced foreclosures, John McCain and other Conservative Republican deregulators actively blocked action by congress through filibuster threat and other minority party procedural maneuvering.

Texas Conservatives, including U.S. Congressmen Sam Johnson and Ralph Hall, and U.S. Senator John Cornyn, have all supported John McCain's and President Bush's call to actively resisted every move that Democratic Legislators have attempted to restore regulatory oversight and get ahead the disaster that has now fallen upon the country and the rest of the world.

(See Republican National Convention video just below showing that further deregulation was a main topic discussion less than two months ago. )

Now, the problems have spread to the entire economy and todays American taxpayer and their children, tomorrows taxpayers, are is stuck paying the price tag to fix the problem.

Related Postings: McCain’s Conservative "Hooverism" Republican Deregulation To Cost Taxpayers $1.5 Trillion in Wall Street Bailouts

ABC/WaPo Poll: 90% Of Voters See U.S. On Wrong Track

The latest ABC News/Washington Post Poll:

Discontent Buffets the Nation; Bush Craters, Obama Benefits
Obama in Drivers Seat Amid Economic Worry
ANALYSIS by GARY LANGER
Oct. 13, 2008

Given the global economic crisis, a record 90 percent of registered voters say the country is seriously off on the wrong track, the most since this question first was asked in 1973. At 23 percent, Bush's job approval rating has fallen below Nixon's lowest; it's a point away from the lowest in 70 years of polling, set by Harry Truman in early 1952. Bush's disapproval, meanwhile, is at an all-time record  73 percent.

Registered voters trust Obama over McCain to handle the economy by 53-37 percent. Obama holds his largest lead yet, a remarkable 30-point margin, in better understanding the economic problems Americans are having, 58-28 percent. Obama leads McCain by about as much, 59-31 percent, in trust to help the middle class, and by 11 points on taxes, two prime points of contention in the last presidential debate....

McCain's receiving blowback for what's perceived as negative campaigning; registered voters by 59-35 percent say he's been mainly attacking Obama rather than addressing the issues. Obama, by contrast, is seen by an even wider margin as issue-focused....

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