Early voting breaks record

By Jack Douglas Jr. and Max B. Baker

Star-Telegram   30 October 2004

About 310,000 Tarrant County voters cast early ballots for Tuesday's election, eclipsing an early-voting record set in the 2000 presidential election, county officials said.

Statewide, more than 2 million Texans had voted by the time early balloting ended Friday, another record triggered by public interest in the race between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry and contentious congressional races set up by a controversial redrawing of political boundaries by Republican state lawmakers.

Relatively few problems were reported locally and across the state as voters registered their decisions on paper ballots and computerized systems.

Some local voters, however, reported difficulty with electronic voting and complicated instructions, particularly in Arlington, where straight-party voters had to make an extra effort to vote on whether taxpayers should help pay for a new Dallas Cowboys stadium.

"I feel deceived, that someone is trying to pull the wool over my eyes," Carla Griffith said after voting at the Kooken Educational Center.

One Texan now living in Sweden sent an e-mail to the Star-Telegram saying that neither she nor an American friend there had received the absentee ballots they had requested.

"Both she and I were intending to vote Kerry," according to the e-mail. "While that will weigh lightly in the state of Texas, it nonetheless is my right and duty to vote."

Tarrant County Elections Administrator Robert Parten said that about 33 percent of the county's 918,000 registered voters cast early ballots.

In the 2000 presidential election, 201,000 Tarrant County residents voted early, Parten said.

On Tuesday, when polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., as many as 300,000 additional county residents are expected to cast ballots.

On Friday, voters reported few problems and said they were relieved that lines were relatively short.

"It was new to me, but I don't think I had any trouble," said Reginald Paige, who voted at the Handley-Meadowbrook Community Center in far east Fort Worth. "You just have to be careful and look at what you are doing."

Hsiu Forney, who voted at a polling site in far southwest Fort Worth, agreed.

"It was real fast-moving," Forney said.

Betty Coomer, a former elections worker, said she trusts the electronic voting machines that were used in Tarrant County for early voting. But Coomer said she is not surprised some people were perplexed by the machinery, which was first introduced in limited numbers for the 2000 elections.

"Anything new ... throws people off, young and old," she said.

People came and went at the Hurst Recreation Center, with more than 50 people waiting patiently in line on occasion. Voters said they expected even longer lines on Election Day.

"It beats Tuesday," said Lubov Landsberg of Euless as she walked to the parking lot after voting.

In Arlington, some voters continued to be vexed by the machines and the printed instructions, especially those who wanted to vote a straight-party ticket.

Voters who cast a straight-party ticket were required to scroll down the ballot to find the stadium issue on the screen before completing their balloting.

Roger Bahgan said he was confounded by the ballot-counting computers even though "I work with computers all day long." He said he was denied a chance to vote again after he realized he had passed over the option to vote on the stadium measure.

Morris Reid, a political consultant in Washington, D.C., said that electronic voting machine vendors did not road test their products enough before sending them out to be used by older voters and by poll workers who were not comfortable with computers.

"It is going to be a stressful situation for them," Reid said. "We've had four years to get prepared and we haven't taken the time to get prepared.

"It is just a crime."

In neighboring Denton, Johnson and Parker counties, high turnouts and few problems were reported by election officials.

In Denton County, officials said more than 100,000 early ballots had been cast at the county's 14 early voting locations by early Friday afternoon.

In Johnson County, where early voting was expected to top 25 percent, there had been few problems with the optical scanner systems, Election Administrator Cheri Haley said.

The county purchased a new high-speed system in January, but voters were familiar with the "color-in-the-oval" ballots that have been used for years, Haley said.

By Thursday, nearly 19,000 about 20 percent of the county's 80,062 registered voters had cast ballots.