Terrence called this meeting “Looking towards the Fall and what we can do practically”. He had Ed Johnson from the Harris County Tax Assessor Collector’s office as the featured speaker, discussing Voter Fraud. If you have ever been to one of Terrence’s meetings, you know that he isn’t focused as much on this year as he is on 2012, understanding that change will come slowly to Houston’s Inner Loop. But that it can be done, if enough people get involved and stay at it consistently.
Paul Simpson gave us a glimpse of a project that he is working on at the precinct level. He has set up a voter information database that can be accessed by precinct volunteers as they coordinate block walks, phone banks and mailouts. His project is separate from the Harris County Republican Party and is also separate from the work being done by the King Street Patriots with their LINKS program. Paul mentioned that they are working with state rep candidates Jim Murphy in 133, Sarah Davis in 134, Fernando Herrera in 148, and Jack O’Connor in 149.
Neal Meyer gave a quick update on the Richmond rail progress, telling the 30 or so attendees that the Obama administration is helping to slow rail projects. Don Hooper gave an update on the Renew Houston group, a rather bizarre group of engineers that have decided to spend billions on infrastructure in Houston – billions that they profit from, have no specific plans for, and, best of all, do it for “jobs, quality of life, public safety, and the economy”. Sheesh, the only thing they left out was “do it for the children”. From their website:
JOBS: Creates jobs for Houstonians. QUALITY OF LIFE: Rebuild the foundation of our communities with new storm sewers and streets, and maintenance of existing storm sewers, drainage ditches, and streets. PUBLIC SAFETY: Allow emergency vehicles easy and fast access to our neighborhoods and businesses. ECONOMY: Houston cannot be economically competitive with the rest of the nation without having good drainage and streets.
I think that this group would have a bit more credibility if they weren’t so darned arrogant and if they spent just a wee bit of their time looking for savings in the current budget. Their mantra seems to be “give us the money and we’ll fix whatever ails you – just don’t ask us how”. But they may well get this thing to pass – they are well funded (hey, who wouldn’t invest a thousand to get a million?) and well organized. It looks like Brad Olson has bought into it with this puff piece in the Chronicle. As much as I’d like to think that people ignore the Chron these days, the fact is that most elderly folks still treat it as if it were written on stone tablets. Just ask my dad.
Randy Kubosh gave a brief update on his petition drive to get the no red-light camera proposition on the ballot. They have enough signatures but want to pre-verify them before turning them in. If you live in the City of Houston and are registered to vote, click here to sign the petition. It’s fast and easy, do it for those of us that can’t!
Mr. Johnson talked for quite a bit about voter fraud. He spend a lot of time on the mid-90’s and his initial work with Dwayne Bohac, a brief bit on his later problems because of that, and about the integrity of electronic voting systems. His view is that the electronic systems are virtually infallible and that the only reason the Democrats want a paper ballot is so that they can return to stealing elections. Regardless of what you think about the infallibility of electronic voting systems, there is no doubt in my mind that his is absolutely correct about the reasoning behind a return to paper ballots. Remember those good old days? You know, when the union halls in Pasadena would be the last to turn in their boxes and guys that were up suddenly were down? I do.
One of the more interesting stats came from Mark Antill, who is helping with the John Faulk campaign. He stated that Harris County has six congressional districts, three controlled by Republicans and three controlled by Democrats. Lets see, that would be Culberson, Poe, and Olson for the Repubs and Al Green, Gene Green, and Sheila Jackson Lee for the Dems. In the three Repub controlled districts combined, there are 1,800 households with six or more registered voters. Combined. In Al Greens CD-9, there are 7,500. In Gene Green’s CD-29, there are 8,500. In Sheila Jackson Lee’s, there are 17,500. Think about that. Then consider this – those 6 voter household’s in the Dem districts have a better than 50{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} voting record versus 24{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} for the county. And the majority of those ballots are sent in by mail. Think there isn’t voter fraud happening there? Of course there is and that is why it is so important that our Republican state legislature pass a Voter Photo ID bill. Critically important.
Ed Johnson reiterated this with an anecdotal story of one case. It seems that he found a residence that had twelve voters registered and each of them cast ballots in the election. He looked the address up on the HCAD website and found that it was a one bedroom home listing an elderly woman as the owner. He called her up and asked her how this could be. She stated that all of them were her children and that they “INTENDED” to move back home. Pay close attention to that word: intended. That is all the election code requires. These twelve ballots were, you guessed it, mailed in.
For a mid-summer strategy meeting, it was pretty effective. It wasn’t the usual crowd, probably because Terrence’s meetings usually result in the attendees having something to do afterwards versus just attending and having a party. Not too many candidates showed up – Stan Stanart, Judge Lynn Bradshaw-Hull, and Judge Patricia Kerrigan (her legs should be classified as a weapon) were the only ones I saw. BTW, Judge Bradshaw-Hull’s husband, Christopher, acknowledged, probably reluctantly, that my shirt and shorts sorta, kinda matched.
UPDATE: I rec’d an email from Mr. Antill – apparently, he thinks I misunderstood him last night.
Here is his note:
Appreciate the quote but a few corrections:
1. There are, on average, 1,800 voters registered in homes with six or more for the Republican CDs. Not combined.
2. There are 19,578 voters registered in homes with 6 or more in CD-18.
There you go.