The Grinding Continues

A prominent conspiracy theorist in Texas helped allies in Gillespie County challenge the results of a 2019 referendum over fluoride in tap water.

But a judge didn't buy their claims of election irregularities. With @VotebeatUS: https://t.co/a2jTeFkQ0I

— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) October 13, 2022

First salient point related to recent comments about why Trump isn't in prison orange yet. This article concerns a civil suit brought over an election conducted 3 years ago. As the city attorney who defended the suit said at the end: “This is done. I’ve been dealing with this for years,” he said. “I’m tired of it.”

This is real life. Court cases don’t begin and end in 60 minutes.

And this was a simple and stupid lawsuit that never should have been brought, by people who think they "know" the law, and simply don't.

Meanwhile, Hormuth testified about the claim that poll watchers couldn’t see proceedings. “I was more of a spectator. It was like they didn’t want watchers there. It felt secretive,” Hormuth said, referring to how far away election officials told her to stand while she observed proceedings at the central counting station after polls had closed on election night.

Suspicions about secrecy and obstruction dominated the two-hour trial. Hormuth, Smith and Farley cited their interpretation of the election code to justify their claims as Pressley nodded and smiled from the first row of the courtroom. But their testimony didn’t carry the day.

Terry Hamilton, one of the former Gillespie County elections workers, also testified Monday.

“If they can’t see from 3 feet away, then they shouldn’t be a poll watcher,” Hamilton said. People in the audience gasped and laughed, mocking Hamilton’s testimony.

“The statute [related to poll watching] doesn’t specify distances, it just says they need to sit or stand conveniently near the activity,” said Jones, the city attorney, after proceedings concluded. “The law supported the arguments that I was making. I’m glad the court agreed.”

Basically what the plaintiffs didn't understand meant the defendants (the election judges, etc.) were engaged in a conspiracy.  Funny how that doesn't persuade judges.

Davis said election judges in Williamson County have repeatedly reported Pressley-trained poll watchers describing ballots as “illegal” because they’re not consecutively numbered and arguing over the access poll watchers should have in central counting stations. But Davis said he and other election officials are confident that the procedures counties follow are correct and in compliance with Texas election laws.

“When the judges call, we tell them, ‘Keep doing your work and give the poll watcher a warning that if they disrupt you again or the process, we can have them removed,’” Davis said. “I don’t think [the lawsuits] will change anything. We have documentation that we’re following the rules of the secretary of state’s office.”

A sign of  Pressley's ignorance (aside from the fact she's an anti-flouride activist) is this demand ballots be consecutively numbered.  Elections experts point out that would actually make it easier to cheat, not harder.*  Mail in ballots, likewise, are far more secure than other types of voting; but conspiracy nuts want to ban them.  Because they are conspiracy nuts. And basically they don't understand what's happening right in front of them, so it must be a conspiracy!

Right after the judge adjourned the case, some in the crowd seemed to not understand that the judge had ruled against the suit. The room was quiet. Then, a man in the crowd asked, “So did we win?”

In unison, several other people responded.

“No.”

I guess the Deep State was in control of most of the spectators, too. 

*“The Texas system originally was devised so that, in case of an election contest, any voter’s ballot could be identified and the court could determine whether it had been changed,” stated a 1947 McAllen Monitor editorial supporting the shift toward more privacy at the ballot box. “But this precaution is so little needed in contrast to the far more prevalent danger of checking up on timid voters that the cure has done more harm than the original malady.”

Since then, historians have pointed to the numbering system as a facilitator of election fraud. Douglas Clouatre wrote in his book “Presidential Upsets: Dark Horses, Underdogs, and Corrupt Bargains” that George Parr, a longtime political boss in South Texas, used numbered ballots, in combination with poll lists, to identify and bribe voters to choose Democratic candidates and reject Republican ballots. Parr’s scheme is credited with helping John F. Kennedy win Texas in 1960.

Seven election experts and administrators told ProPublica and the Tribune that consecutively numbering ballots is out of step with best practices in election security and is not required to conduct effective election audits.

“In an audit you’re counting the ballots in a particular precinct to see if they match the totals that you’ve already got, and so the order of the ballots doesn’t matter as long as you are counting all of them,” said Kimball, the ballot design expert.