Voter Empowerment and Election Protection

by Deborah Angell-Smith

Join us for a Democratic Network Educational Forum discussion on Voter Empowerment and Election Protection, at 10:45am this Sat., September 22nd, at the John & Judy Gay Library in McKinney. A panel of local experts will explain what's supposed to happen - and NOT happen - in pivotal moments and key decisions that can make or break an individual vote or an election. (John & Judy Gay Library - 6861 El Dorado Parkway - Map)

Remember 2000? Hanging chads, voter suppression, overwhelming confusion and voting machines that may - or may not - have counted the votes as they were cast. There were critical failures at many key points along the way that resulted in a stolen election and eight long years of regret. 

Today, the King Street Patriots, Tea Party groups and conservative activists of all stripes are recruiting and training followers to "True the Vote" in ways that are clearly designed to intimidate legitimate voters and suppress votes from ethnic and religious minorities, young people and other targeted populations. On the heels of months of voter photo I.D. court fights, deputy voter registrar court fights, redistricting court fights, plus a last minute purge of dead voters who are not dead, confusion and errors in the election process are virtually guaranteed, and we still have concerns about those machines.

Saturday September 22, 2012

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Saturday's Democratic Network Forum will review the critical points in the election process that can make a big difference - to individual voters and candidates - from GOTV (Get-Out-The-Vote) programs to early and election day polling procedures, central count and ballot board processes. A panel of local experts will explain what's supposed to happen - and NOT happen - in pivotal moments and key decisions that can make or break an individual vote or an election.

Being informed about these intimidation tactics and failure points before the first votes are cast allows you to defend vulnerable voters and protect the interests of candidates you support. You'll able to share important information with your network and identify potential issues anywhere and everywhere you see them. As a follow-up, our Saturday, October 13th Forum will provide more in-depth information for poll watchers, greeters and others who concerned about protecting voters rights - and we will need LOTS of them. Start recruiting now, and ask them to attend these Forum presentations.

Both programs will be held at the John & Judy Gay Library in McKinney, 6861 El Dorado Parkway, just east of Alma. It's centrally located in the county and offers plenty of room, so please encourage Democratic friends and neighbors to come with you. Join us for coffee and breakfast goodies at 10:45 am and the program will get started at 11. We'll wrap up by 1 pm and those who care to continue the discussion can adjourn to a nearby restaurant for lunch.

Like most activists, the Democratic Network Forum will take a break in November and December. We encourage you to recuperate from the election, rest and spend time with your family and friends. We'll see you at various holiday parties and be back in January with informative programs to educate you about issues that affect us here in Collin County, and what we, as Democrats, can do to make things better.  Keep in mind that the Texas Legislature starts back up again in January, and local candidates will be filing for city council and school board elections, so we'll have plenty to talk about!

As always, we invite your input on topics, speakers, format and other options - and encourage you to get involved in growing our network. We'll have sign-up and comment sheets at the event, but if you aren't able to attend, please e-mail us at info@collindems.net, or call (469) 713-2031 to leave a voice message.

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In Memory of Guy Jones

It is with deep regret that we share the sad news that Guy Jones, a devoted former Democratic Precinct Chair for Precinct 120 in Allen, Election Judge, member of the Ballot Board and passionate activist passed away Saturday morning after a long struggle with Parkinson's Disease and cancer. He is survived by four adult children, including daughter Marty Jones who has also been active in our community.

Guy was a model Precinct Chair in the days before VAN and kept his own meticulous records about his voter contacts. Likewise, as an Election Judge and member of the Ballot Board he always knew the rules and followed them to the letter. A true gentleman, he was kind to everyone, regardless of their political affiliation, and had a delightful sense of humor. He was also devoted Texas Rangers fan and enjoyed watching games with his family and friends.

Services will held Thursday, 9/20 at 2 pm at Suncreek United Methodist Church at 1517 W. McDermott in Allen, appropriately, across from the Twin Creeks baseball fields. A short graveside service will follow at nearby Ridgeview Cemetery and mourners are invited back to the church for refreshments and fellowship.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Marty and the rest of the Jones family as they mourn the loss of their father and grandfather.

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Democratic Network Educational Forum

Sen. Ellis: We Have A Voter Rolls Problem

In a letter to the editor of the The Statesman, Texas Senator Rodney Ellis (D-13) explains the dead voter purge problem that tens of thousands of live voters may face when they go to vote, starting on October 22, 2012.

In the past week, thousands of voters across Texas opened their mailboxes to learn that they might be dead. It was quite a shock to many of them.

This week, I began receiving calls from constituents who had received letters from Harris County voting officials stating the government had obtained information indicating they were deceased and, unless they responded to the letter within 30 days, their voter registration will be canceled. Thousands of such letters apparently have gone out across the state.

Here's the back story:

Are You Ready For Voting To Start In Just 34 Days?

Early voting for the November 6, 2012 General Election starts in just 34 days, on Monday October 22, 2012. To vote early or on November 6th, you must be registered to vote or have mailed your new voter registration application to your county's election office by midnight October 9, 2012. November 6, 2012 General Election Information for Collin County:

• Early Voting Locations & Hours
• Election Day Polling Locations
• Sample Ballots

If you did not received your new yellow 2012-13 voter registration card sometime during the last six months, you may not be registered to vote in the county where you currently reside. You must be registered to vote in the county where you currently reside in order to vote.

Even if you did receive your yellow 2012-13 voter registration card in April, your registration may have since been canceled, if you received, but did not respond to a letter from your county elections office. You should immediately check your registration status and take action to properly register, if you find you are not registered to vote in the county where you reside.

To check your Collin Co. registration status - click here. To check your registration status in any other Texas county - click here. If you find you are not registered to vote, you can find the Voter's Registration application by clicking here. (More details available at Your 2012 Collin Co. Voter Registration Card ~ NPR: Texans Bereaved Over 'Dead' Voter Purge ~ Ignore A Letter From The Elections Office And Get Purged From Voting.)

If you are not registered to vote in the county where you currently reside, but you recently moved from another Texas county where you are still registered to vote, it is illegal under Texas election law for you to return to your previous county of residence to cast a ballot. However, during early voting, and only during early voting, you may vote a "limited ballot" containing statewide and national candidates by appearing in person at the main election early voting location in the county where you currently reside.

Texas did not receive administrative or judicial preclearance by the Department of Justice or federal court for Senate Bill 14, the state's voter photo I.D. law, as explained in the Texas Secretary of State's August 30, 2012 press release. This means that the current law still applies to November 6, 2012 elections. To cast a ballot in person for the November 6th General Election during Early Voting or on Election Day, voters can present their voter registration card, or in lieu of a voter registration card, at least one of the following:

NPR: Texans Bereaved Over 'Dead' Voter Purge

Like all states, Texas regularly purges its rolls of voters who've died. Normally, this is a routine process where the Texas Secretary of State passes along to the counties a small list of voters who have recently died. County election officials then mail "death notification" letters to voters on the list. The letter tells voters they are presumed dead and have 30 days to notify election authorities, if they are, in fact, alive. Voters who have not died and fail to respond to the letter will have their voter registration canceled.

In the past, a small list of deceased voters is routinely generated as the Secretary of State's office matches new deaths recorded by the Texas Department of Vital Statistics with its statewide voter registration data base. A positive match of voters listed in the voter registration data base and people listed in other state and federal agency data bases can be made only when full social security number, first, last and middle names, plus name suffix, date of birth and address identity information completely match.

Listen to NPR's report on the Texas Secretary of State's program to purge "dead voters" - who aren't dead - from the voter registration data base.

The list of deceased voters the Secretary of State sent to county election officials this month, just two months before the election, includes the names of nearly 80,000 voters.

About 90 percent of those on the Secretary of State's deceased voters list are probably still living because a only very limited match of identity information was made for 90 percent of the names.

Why Obama Is Winning 57% of Registered Voters

By a margin of 57%-35%, registered voters blame George W. Bush and the Republican Party for the poor condition of the economy, according to a new CNN/ORC poll.

In his address at the Democratic National Convention President Clinton said, "In Tampa, [at the Republican National Convention] the Republican argument against the president’s re-election was actually pretty simple — pretty snappy. It went something like this: We left him a total mess. He hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough. So fire him and put us back in." The CNN/ORC poll shows that registered voters are not buying that Republican message.

When George W. Bush took office, the federal government was running an annual surplus of $86 billion. The Bush tax cuts have cost nearly $1.3 trillion in federal debt over 10 years. The legacy of President Bush's eight years in office, with much of that time supported by a Republican controlled congress, should be remembered as a grand and failed experiment of what happens when conservatives are in control of the government.

The failures of Bush's eight year administration cannot be chalked up to Bush alone. The $4 trillion IOU war in Iraq, the home mortgage market bubble, the collapsing economy, the Hurricane Katrina tragedy that befell New Orleans and trickle-down tax cuts (that never trickled down) were all failures of conservative ideology. Those failures are owned by every conservative in Congress who championed and happily rubber-stamped conservative legislation and the conservative philosophy of financial and banking system deregulation and tax cuts for billionaires.

The truly compelling story of the Bush decade is one that conservatives do not want you to remember – the rapid and dramatic failure of conservative government. America learned what life is like under a true conservative government. With near absolute power, conservatives pursued their fiscal and social agenda without compromise.

In a position of virtually unchecked power conservatives failed quickly and utterly at the most basic responsibilities of governing, leaving our nation weaker and deeply in debt, and our people less prosperous, less safe and less free. The Bush years may have been years of political and legislative victories for conservatives, but those years of political and legislative victories had disastrous and long lasting consequences for the nation.

And the American people do remember all those conservative failures.

Record Partisan Gap in Views of Economic News

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Sept. 7-9, finds that views of economic news are far more positive than they were in August 2011, when 67% said economic news was mostly bad.

Just 15% of Democrats say recent economic news is mostly bad, down from 31% a month ago and among the lowest percentages over the last four years.

Six-in-ten Republicans (60%) say news about the economy is mostly bad, as do 36% of independents. Opinions among Republicans and independents are largely unchanged from a month ago.

Public perceptions of news about the job situation remain negative, but no more negative than during the past few months. About half (52%) say they are hearing mostly bad news about the job situation. The percentage hearing mostly bad news about jobs has been about at this level since June; in March just 38% said the news about jobs was mostly bad.

More than twice as many Republicans (75%) as Democrats (34%) say news about the job situation has been mostly bad. Democrats’ views of job news are less negative than last month, when 43% said the news was mostly bad. Opinions among Republicans (75% now mostly bad) and independents (now 54%) are largely unchanged over this period.

True the Vote’s Spreading Campaign to Intimidate Minority Voters in 2012

As we approach the 2012 election, every indication is that we will see an unprecedented use of voter challenges in an effort to suppress minority voting. True the Vote is a tea party based organization that aims to recruit one million poll watchers around the country this November, to challenge minority voters under the color of protecting the electoral process against vote impersonation fraud — notwithstanding overwhelming factual evidence showing that in-person voting voter impersonation fraud is all but non-existent.

True the Vote representatives say they want to make the experience of voting “like driving [while black, through a white suburbia neighborhood,] and seeing the police following you.

Organization leaders are allegedly prepared to promote extralegal, but not necessarily illegal, measures to exploit election laws in several 2012 battleground states to challenge minority Democratic voters. (click on the map for details)

Bullies at the Ballot Box, a new report released jointly by Demos and Common Cause, reviews election laws of ten battleground states — Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia — that might be exploited to suppress the vote.

Thirty-nine states allow private citizens to challenge voters at the polls. Of the thirty-nine states where anyone can challenge voters' eligibility to vote inside polling places, only fifteen of them require the challengers to prove that the person they’re challenging isn’t an eligible voter. Which means that in twenty-four states poll watchers can wage all kinds of frivolous extralegal, but not necessarily illegal, mischief to exploit election laws, with accusations — that a voter is an “illegal alien,” or that they are using a dead person’s identity to vote — to burden if not intimidate voters and slow traffic flow through buy polling places.

In states with "voter challenge" laws, the poll watcher's intended roll to guarantee fair elections can be abused and used for racial profiling for no other reason than having a Latino surname or dark skin color. In those states, people can make up a reason to challenge a voter’s rights without any evidence backing them up, and do so with impunity. A new report from the Brennan Center for Justice, “Voter Challengers” details that troublesome history while spelling out just how problematic such poll-watching activities can be, especially when administered by hyper-partisan and racially insensitive groups like True the Vote.

True the Vote, and their many allies, often cite voter fraud as the reason for militarizing the polls, but countless studies have shown that their claims of massive in-person voting voter fraud are nothing more than lies, as detailed in this News 21 investigation. That creates a real danger that voters and election officials will face misguided and overzealous True the Vote poll greeter and poll watcher volunteers, who will take the law into their own hands to target minority voters and election officials — outside and inside polling places.

Obama or Romney: A Key Civil and Women's Rights Supreme Court Decision

by Michael Handley

While there are many issues that should be considered when casting a vote for a presidential candidate, perhaps the most important issue is the Supreme Court. A president's term lasts for a maximum of eight years; a Supreme Court justice's term can span more than 30 years.

Three Supreme Court justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy — will reach their 80s during the next presidential administration. Whoever wins in November will likely have the opportunity to appoint at least one and possibly up to three justices. And remember, it is the U.S. Senate that confirms the president's court appointments. So think about that before you skip the U.S. Senate ballot position, when casting your vote.

The average tenure of a Supreme Court justice today is 25 to 35 years — spanning more than six presidential terms. If the newest justice, Elena Kagan, serves for all of her current life expectancy, she will remain on the court until 2045. If extreme conservatives replace Justice Ginsburg and Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court will have a solid 6-3 conservative to extremely conservative court advantage over progressive justices.

Women in particularly should care whether Obama or Romney make lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court. Your right of privacy to make your own health care and family planning choices is at stake. If Romney wins, he will certainly nominate extremely conservative justices to appeal to the Tea Party elements within his party. President Romney would appoint conservative justices who support Justice Scalia's position that women have no constitutional right of privacy to choose to use contraception or choose to have an abortion, even when her life is at risk from a pregnancy.

And the constitutionally of the Voting Rights Act at the hands of a solid 6-3 conservative to extreme conservative Supreme Court? Forget about it! How about the rights of individual citizens compared to "corporations are people, too," rights? No contest. And that old Brown v. Board of Education court decision? Welcome back "separate but equal."

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision turned life upside down in this country as it outlawed segregation in public schools and provided a road map for the civil rights assault on other aspects of the racist status quo. The 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decision that women have a constitutional right of privacy to choose to learn about and use contraception is a fundamental cornerstone of women's rights.

The decision on whether the bloody battles over social, reproductive and civil rights, fought more than a half century ago, are again thrust upon us hang on this election. President Romney would without doubt appoint Supreme Court Justices who would turn back the clock to 1954!

Ignore A Letter From The Elections Office And Get Purged From Voting

by Michael Handley

I have received a few emails and calls from friends asking my opinion about letters they or a family member recently received from the county election registrar indicating the office had received information that they were deceased. The letter said that [if they are alive,] they should immediately contact the election office, otherwise they will be purged from the voter registration data base. Thankfully, none of my friends had died or suffered a death in the family.

Statewide, more than 1.5 million voter records could be suspended and eventually purged if people fail to vote or update their voter registration records for two consecutive federal elections: One out of every 10 Texas voters' registration is currently suspended. Among voters under 30, the figure is about one in five. More than 300,000 valid voters were notified they could be removed from Texas rolls from November 2008 to November 2010 because they were mistaken for someone else who moved or died and failed to receive or respond to generic election office form letters.

State and federal HAVA laws require the nation's voter rolls be regularly reviewed and cleaned to remove duplicates and eliminate voters who move or die. This clean up cycle occurs every three months in Texas. But across Texas, such "removals" rely on outdated computer programs, faulty procedures and voter responses to generic form letters, often resulting in the wrong people being sent election status inquiry letters, including new homeowners, college students, Texans who work abroad and folks with common names.

The Secretary of State's office says it contacts counties to purge voters only when there is a "strong match" - such as full name, Social Security number and/or date of birth - between a U.S Post Office, Vital Records Dept. or other agency data feed record and an existing voter registration record. However, each year thousands of voters receive letters to verify voter information or be cancelled only because they share the same first name, last name and middle initial as a voter who died or was convicted of a crime.

Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade, recently sent lists of possible deceased voters to county elections administrators, totaling almost 77,000 names. The lists contain both “strong matches” and “weak matches” between the Social Security Administration's or Bureau of Vital Statistics' death records and the the Secretary of State's statewide TEAM data base of registered voters. Less than 9,000 of the nearly 77,000 names on list were considered strong record matches. Record matches where social security numbers and some combination of first, last and middle names, plus name suffix, date of birth and possibly other information match, are considered “strong record matches.” "Weak record matches" are where first and last names, plus middle name or initial and some other piece of information, like last Soc. Sec. number digits or county, match.

County election officials across Texas have been mailing "death notification" letters to nearly 80,000 voters on the list. The letters tells voters that they are presumed dead and have 30 days to notify election authorities, if they are alive. Voters who fail to respond will have their registration canceled.

Houston Chronicle - Monday, September 10, 2012:

Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Don Sumners said Monday that he would not purge from the voter roll before the November election any of the 9,018 citizens who received letters from his office in recent days notifying them that they may be dead and are at risk of having their registrations canceled. However, a spokesman for the Texas secretary of state, the office that generated the statewide list of about 80,000 voters, said Sumners’ move contradicts legislative directives. ”Our office has federal and state requirements to maintain an accurate and secure voter registration list. If any of those people are deceased, the law requires that they be removed from the voter registration list ,” Rich Parsons said. “Mr. Sumners’ decision would prevent that.” The letters, many of which were delivered Friday and Saturday, asked recipients to verify within 30 days that they are alive or be cut from the roll.

Sumners, who also is the county’s voter registrar, said conversations with the Secretary of State’s Office convinced him the list of possible dead was too unreliable to act on until after the Nov. 6 election. ”We’re not even going to process any of the cancellations until after the election,” Sumners said. “Because we’ve gotten such a response from people that say that they are still alive.”

Full Article: Voter purge canceled in wake of faulty death data – Houston Chronicle.

If you have not already received your new yellow 2012-13 voter registration card, you may not be registered to vote in the county where you currently reside. You should immediately check your registration status and take action to properly register, if you find you are not registered to vote in the county where you reside. To check your Collin Co. registration status - click here. To check your registration status in another Texas county - click here. If you find you are not registered to vote, you can find the Voter's Registration application by clicking here.

More details available at Your 2012 Collin Co. Voter Registration Card.

The Courage Of United Flight 93 Passengers And Crew

by Michael Handley

The 40 passengers and crew who fought back against their hijackers aboard United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001 performed a courageous act. The hijackers of Flight 93 intended to crash the plane in Washington DC, likely the Capitol Building or the White House, but never made it because of the determination and valor of the passengers and crew.

President Bill Clinton said at a 2011 ceremony dedicating the first phase of a memorial at the nation's newest national park near Shanksville, Pa., where Flight 93 crashed, "With almost no time to decide, they gave the entire country an incalculable gift. They saved the capitol from attack. They saved God knows how many lives. They saved the terrorists from claiming the symbolic victory of smashing the center of American government. And they did it as citizens."

Ed Felt, my colleague at the Internet infrastructure start up software company BEA Systems, was one of the passengers on Flight 93 that day. Ed was traveling on Flight 93 from BEA's east coast office to the company's headquarters office in San Jose, CA - a flight other BEA employees, and I, frequented.  Ed was one of the top five software engineers at our billion-dollar start up company having just received a U.S. patent in August 2001 for software he designed for BEA.

Flight 93 became an American profile in courage on that day that claimed almost 5,000 lives, toppled buildings that stood like a twin Colossus on the New York shore, took down one side of the Pentagon, and ushered in two wars.

What made Flight 93 different was a decision reached somewhere over the skies of Western Pennsylvania, after passengers learned on cell phones that their hijackers planned to crash their Boeing 757 plane into a building as the fourth in a quartet of suicide attacks.
Here is the story of Ed and the other 39 passengers and crew members of United Flight 93.