TX DPS "lost" motor-voter registrations..

[rainbow4321]

Kinda troubling to hear that the department that handles HALF of our state's voter registrations is LOSING them instead of processing them! Wonder how people who were told that they were not in the system when they showed up Nov 2nd have these fools to thank??

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/10055990.htm


Registrations missing in motor-voter system


Some Texans who thought they registered to vote through the Department of Public Safety have suffered an unpleasant surprise when they showed up to cast their ballots.

In at least a half-dozen cases -- including some in Johnson County -- voters discovered that they couldn't cast ballots or that their vote likely wouldn't count. The problem? Voter registration forms supposedly handled by DPS somehow never made it to county election officials. Who's to blame remains a mystery. But it has already caused headaches during early balloting and could become a wider problem during general voting Tuesday.

Through the state's motor-voter law, adopted in 1992, DPS employees offer registration forms to motorists when they renew their driver's licenses. The DPS handles about half the voter registrations processed in Texas, according to officials.

[SammyWinstonJack]

1. Wonder why the need to do that in a red state?

In "bush" country. :shrug:

[jasmeel]

4. vote skimming??

[SammyWinstonJack]

5. Can't have Texas going blue

Would be embarrassing for the chimp.

[Not_Giving_Up]

6. We're not all red ya know

Nearly everyone I know is dem, but our county still came up as more red than anything. How embarassing would i t be for the shrub if he didn't carry TX?

[Helga Scow Stern]

7. Gotta get those 3 million popular votes somehow.

[rainbow4321]

8. Cuz we have several blue counties...

And if they were looking to pad votes in certain states?? Totally tinfoil hat moment right now but what better way to purge a system of minority votes...the DPS records would have their race listed , etc. Wouldn't ya love to see state-wide results of who didn't get registered/who got lost?

Among the blue: El Paso County, Travis County <Austin>, and the Tex-Mex border
SO close to blue without actually being blue: Dallas County
A few points away from being blue <around 45%?>: Harris County <Houston>

And then there were the Delay and Sessions races to help along.


:tinfoilhat:

[eek]

2. Harrumph. I would like to see a list of names or addresses of the "lost"

Anyone care to make a guess about the demographics?

[rainbow4321]

10. And what states it happened in the most...

Things that make you go hmmmm....


http://www.newspress.com/election2004/expectation102804.html

SACRAMENTO - In April, thousands of electronic voting machines were decertified. By July, the secretary of state stumbled into deepening scandals. Now, days before voting, the Department of Motor Vehicles has found more than 300 unsent voter registrations at state headquarters - and apologized.

Among them, the DMV discovered last week that it misplaced 309 voter registration forms handled through the department's "motor voter" program. Spokesman Bill Branch said Wednesday the registrations, some dating as far back as May, were mistakenly sent to state headquarters with records to be microfilmed and sat unnoticed.

"The inadvertent misrouting should not have happened," Mr. Branch said. "DMV apologizes for any inconvenience to those 309 voters." Mr. Branch and state elections officials said the registrations are valid and were immediately sent to their counties of origin across the state. But most will probably have to cast provisional ballots Tuesday, a special procedure that holds the ballot registration can be verified after the election.

[Not_Giving_Up]

3. One of the reasons why I didn't register at DPS

I figured those idiots would screw it up somehow.

I trusted my registration to the post office...and I was on the list.

[crispini]

9. It's just incompetence in the bureaucracy, IMO.

Why do I say this? Because when the Dallas county elections administrator found out that this was happening, he had his people go through every provisional ballot and look them up in the DPS database itself and if he could find any, ANY indication that they had tried to register-- their vote counted.

I do need to write those reporters, though. I have a bunch of cases documented.