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[FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ff4040"]MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS OF TAXPAYERS' HARD-EARNED MONEY SQUANDERED ON CRAPPY VOTING MACHINES[/FONT] [DIV class=document] [P align=center]
[P align=left]TO: Elections Officials
FROM: Ann McGeehan, Director of Elections
DATE: April 24, 2006
RE: Status of Ballot and Programming Card Orders for the May 13, 2006 Elections
We have heard from many of you that you have not received your programming media or, in some cases, your ballots, for the May 13, 2006 elections. We recognize that this kind of service from a certified voting systems vendors is completely unacceptable and disturbing. We will be pursuing all appropriate remedies from a state level that are available to us.
In the meantime, if you are one of the entities affected, the Secretary of State's office authorizes you to
create emergency ballots. If you do not receive your ballots in time to properly prepare for early voting, you may create your own paper ballots or, if you received a proof from your vendor, you may use
PDF format to print copies of the ballot.
After you print a copy of the ballot, you will need to put a ballot number at the top of the ballot beginning with the next ballot number of the last number of your original ballot order. In other words, if you ordered 15,000 ballots numbered 1-15,000, any ballots you create would be numbered beginning with the number 15,001. You will need to put your initials on the back of the ballot so you can determine it was an official ballot provided by you.
If you do not receive your ballot programming in time to conduct your required Logic and Accuracy tests, you will no option but to begin early voting using the emergency paper ballots.
Once you have received your programs and have conducted a successful L&A test, you must begin using the electronic voting equipment. Guidelines for conducting Logic and Accuracy were mailed out to county election officials in Election Advisory 2006-05, dated February 21, 2006, and are posted on our website at [A href="vny!://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/laws/advisory2006-05.shtml"][FONT color=#000080]vny!://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/laws/advisory2006-05.shtml[/FONT][/A].
Once you have prepared the emergency ballots, you will handle the voter in the regular manner as if paper ballots were being regularly used. If you intend to use optical scan ballots for election day, then the emergency ballots can either be hand counted by the ballot board or the manager of the central counting station can decide to have them duplicated for counting at the central counting station. There are no special lists or other record keeping you need to keep, except to adjust your ballot distribution form.
If you use only a DRE system,
Emergency Ballots
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will have to manually count the paper ballots and add your manual totals to the electronic count produced from your DRE central tabulating system. Of course, you will also need to secure ballot boxes for the placement of these paper ballots for the beginning of the early voting period. You may need to hire additional clerks to assist with any hand counting.
Once you have received your programming materials and have conducted a successful Logic and Accuracy test, you must begin to use your electronic systems during early voting, if possible. If a voter with disabilities attempts to vote while using the paper ballots, please advise the voter of the assistance procedure available and when the accessible voting systems will be available in the event the voter chooses to wait until the machines are available. We should also recommend that you contact your local disability groups, AARP chapters and Area Agencies on Aging, and ask them to advise their service populations that they might want to vote later in the early voting timeframe or on Election Day.
Again, we regret the unacceptable position that many political subdivisions are in due to poor performance by their contracted vendor. We appreciate how hard you all have worked to be compliant with the accessibility requirement. We will apprise you of any progress that we make to ensure that vendors perform the services they have promised and contracted to perform.
If you have any questions about this memorandum, please call us at 1-800-252-8683(VOTE).
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