All of Harris County's voting machines destroyed

[sonias]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7173960.html">Houston Chronicle 8/27/10
All of Harris County's voting machines destroyed in 3-alarm north Houston fire

Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman this morning said she is confident of timely, clean elections in November, even as a fire that destroyed the county's entire inventory of 10,000 electronic voting machines still burned.

Kaufman urged voters to cast their ballots early to help the county cope with a possible shortage of equipment on election day.

"Because I don’t expect to have 10,000 pieces to work with, no matter what we do, I’m sure that we’re going to be putting on a full court press urging people to vote early," Kaufman said.

Kaufman said she expected that the fire in a county warehouse in the 600 block of Canino, in north Houston, has destroyed $30 million worth of equipment and caused another $10 million in damage to the building.

Kaufman hopes to cobble together a collection of voting machines through loans from other counties and replacement equipment from its vendor, she said. All five members of Commissioners Court contacted her this morning to pledge their support in helping her with the resources needed to stage a successful election in which early voting begins in just 52 days, she said.

Oh too bad, the paperless e-voting machines got fried!

Dump the crap and get a voter verified paper voting system. Here's your opportunity Harris! :shrug:

[MagickMuffin]

1. Looks as though she has ample time to start printing up ballots

After all she already knows who will be running for offices.

Hmmmmmm, maybe this could be the start of something good :evilgrin: :rofl:


:hi: Sonia

[sonias]

2. Yes it can be the start of something good.

:hi: Magic!

[Dover]

3. Something old, something new, something stolen, something BLUE!

Problems in Texas With E-Slate and Straight-Party Vote
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x93886




Think we can trust those eSlate machines? Think again:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=180x28413

[sonias]

4. Can Harris County Elections Rise From the Ashes?

{div class="excerpt"]Texas Tribune 9/22/10
Can Harris County Elections Rise From the Ashes?
It's been nearly four weeks since a warehouse fire destroyed nearly all of Harris County's election equipment, including almost 10,000 e-Slate voting machines. But as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, the state's most populous county insists it's ready to hold a normal election.

[texanwitch]

5. We have new laptops for early voting.

Do not worry.

The elections will go on.

[sonias]

6. Thanks texanwitch

I knew the election would go on, I was just worried about where they would cut back resources in a pinch. Seems like it's always the minority communities that get fewer machines etc..

Laptops for early voting? I hadn't heard that one. Is E-Slate providing them?

:hi:

[texanwitch]

7. I believe the lap tops for early voting will be Dells.

On election day I think there will be machines and paper ballots.

I haven't had my precinct judge class yet, won't until October.

This will make for a interesting election.

For early voting everything looks a go.

Some of the equipment is better, like the printers and scanners.

I would hold off voting early voting for a few days, to get the bugs worked out.

[sonias]

8. Keep us posted on how this goes

We are all interested in seeing Harris have a good, fair election.

Thanks for stepping up to work as a precinct election judge!

:yourock:

[texanwitch]

9. This would be a good election for a lot people to be judges or clerks.

More eyes, the better.