By Chris Moran
Houston Chronicle
Harris County clerk is urging public to cast ballots early
A fire that destroyed nearly all Harris County’s electronic voting machines Friday has election officials scrambling to re-equip the county for an election in which early voting starts in just 51 days.
Even before the pre-dawn fire was out, County Clerk Beverly Kaufman pledged to hold a “timely election” on Nov. 2 but suggested the county may have to run fewer than its planned 739 Election Day polling stations if it cannot find enough machines.
Because she does not know how many machines will be available for each polling location, Kaufman started appealing almost immediately to voters to cast their ballots early to help avoid long lines on Election Day.
Early voting begins Oct. 18.
Harris County, with 1.9 million registered voters who account for nearly 15 percent of the state’s electorate, must start from scratch to rebuild an elections infrastructure just over two months before a gubernatorial election.
“There is no doubt in my mind that we’re going to have a timely election here and that we’re going to take care of the voters,” said Kaufman, who is retiring in December after 16 years as chief elections officer. “We have a huge obligation here.”
Related reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa111300b.htm
http://www.texaswatchdog.org/2010/08/threealarm-fire-destroys-nearly-all-of-harris-countys/1282942989.column
http://rangevoting.org/VotSystMap.html
