ELECTION 2007 / AT THE POLLS / New registration system may have stalled election results / Not all voters are accounted for on state's lists

By ANNE MARIE KILDAY, HARVEY RICE, RICHARD STEWART  Houston Chronicle  13 May
Staff

At least two local elections remained undecided Saturday because of problems caused by a new, $14 million statewide registration system that omitted many registered voters.

The Texas Election Administration Management, or TEAM, system may have caused close elections in Hitchcock and the Santa Fe Independent School District to remain undecided Saturday.

That's because of "provisional" ballots cast by voters whose names could not be found on the centralized state system. Officials said they would not know until next week whether TEAM caused the names to be left off the rolls.

In the District 1 city commissioner's race in Hitchcock, contenders Ronald G. Purl and Fard Karriem Abdullah were separated by a single vote. Nine provisional ballots were cast by Hitchcock voters whose names could not be verified.

Twenty-six provisional ballots cast in the Santa Fe ISD election left undecided the Position 5 school board race between Rusty Norman, with 641 votes, and Clay Hertenberger, with 619.

The provisional ballots will be taken to the Galveston County voter registrar for verification Monday.

Other election officials in Galveston County also reported problems.

Mary VanDewalli, election judge at the Weis Middle School polling place in Galveston, said two voters had cast provisional ballots because their names were left off the rolls.

Bayou Vista City Secretary Paula Eshelman also said two voters were left off the rolls even though they had registration cards.

Santa Fe City Secretary Janet Davis said she wouldn't know the cause of all the 25 provisional votes cast in the city election until next week, but she was certain that some names were not on the rolls because the voters lived outside the city. "It didn't really cause us that many problems," she said about the provisional votes.

Low turnout minimized problems at the polls in Chambers County, where some voters' names were d, said County Clerk Heather Hawthorne.

Those voters were delayed "momentarily" when local officials looked up their prior Chambers County voter registration, Hawthorne said.

"If this had been a huge voter-turnout election, it would have been disastrous trying to help these people," Hawthorne said. "So we are just putting our faith and trust in the good state of Texas, that they will have these issues solved by November, and surely by the primary."

In many area counties, the TEAM system either d registered voters or indicated they had moved or registered to vote in a different Texas county.

The TEAM system is run by the Texas Secretary of State's Office, which spent $14 million on a contract with IBM and voting-machine maker Hart InterCivic of Austin. The system was created to comply with the Help America Vote Act of 2002, enacted by Congress in reaction to the 2000 presidential election. The act requires each state to centralize its voter information.

Some election results announced Saturday included provisional votes because returns are unofficial until they are canvassed by the affected city or school board.

Even though Harris County and Fort Bend counties are not participating in the TEAM system, a handful of those voters also had to wait for their registrations to be verified by local officials.

"If this were a general election, it would be causing quite a bit of consternation," Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt said.

Fort Bend County Election Administrator J.R. Perez said that only two voters there had been d from the rolls.

Brazoria County Tax Assessor-Collector Robin Garrett said the election was going smoothly despite similar problems that required provisional ballots for some voters.