So how about that Harris County Election Administration meltdown, eh? I've tweeted about the failures of this office all year, you can catch some of it here

https://twitter.com/somethingfishie/status/1499116679216959494

And here texasscorecard.com/commentary/cra…

We need to talk about this nonsense, right now. Pull up a chair.

https://twitter.com/LongoriaTx/status/1509997393277767689

Let me tell you about staffing elections in Harris county.

For most locations, you need a minimum of about 5 people, two judges and three clerks. The county typically staffs a location with 6 people, so we'll use that to extrapolate.

Alan Vera, Chair of Ballot Security Committee for @HarrisCountyRP on whethr the Election Administrator's failure is due to incompetence or something worse:

"At what point does election incompetence become the perfect camoflage for election malfeasance?" The wrong-sized ballot paper was delivered to some election judges.

Other judges weren't issued ANY ballot paper.

Some judges received broken election equipment.

Some never had their equipment delivered at all.

Most of these were Republican judges, Alan says.

It's the day after the Texas Primaries, and while we wait for the Harris County results (long story you can read about elsewhere) I want to put down some of my experiences.

I've posted about voters overcoming many personal and techical obstacles. Now some of what we faced. First, Harris County removed election authority from the elected County Clerk a few years ago, and created an appointed Election Administrator, answerable to Commisioners Court.

As you can guess, a crony payoff position waiting to happen.

When we check in a voter in Harris county, we scan their ID or perform a simple database search to pull up their unique voter ID.

If there are notes, like say someone needs to update their address, we see that and can help them do that before proceeding. When a person has applied for a mail ballot, the system has a note there to that effect so that we'll see it if they show up in person.

We're supposed to have them fill out a mail ballot cancellation form and update the system so that it gets canceled right away.

I've worked 8 days now out of my 17 early voting day schedule as an election judge in Harris county.

Most of those days I worked 6 am to 7:30 pm, with a half hour for lunch.

It's long days and paperwork and staff management and voter assistance.

And sometimes a joy. The neatest thing is the number of stories I get to witness, the small slices of life I get to observe.

For instance, each time the team discovers a first-time voter, they announce it to the whole room, and everyone cheers and claps.

I often tear up at that.

It's funny how 'fact-checkers' keep making themselves LESS trustworthy every day, and then are so confused as to why people don't pay attention to them.

The other day I posted in several places on Facebook the U-Haul van footage from Louisville. 1/ Here's what the post looked like. This is exactly the wording I used. 2/

It just struck me that the coalition of the left seems to be showing cracks, not over ideology, but over portions of the movement rejecting incrementalism.

I should have seen it with the election of the Squad, but today it's much more obvious. That aversion to incrementalism was one of the huge hangups we've had on the right, one of the barriers to making progress on our own goals.

We were much less likely on the right to take small wins and move in the desired direction over time.

A few of you know I am an election judge in the Houston area. In October I will be working early voting for the November election.

Something tells me it won't be smooth sailing. 1/ First, I agreed to work the election because they really needed a Republican alternate judge in the location I'm assigned to. That provides the checks to the Democrat presiding judge.

Not enough people work elections in general. Early voting is even harder to staff. 2/

Why DO these 'protesters' take video of everything they're doing, but also block cameras of street journalists trying to document what's going on?

I don't understand. It's not like they aren't proud of themselves. In so many videos I see these demonstrators operating in a sea of cell phone recordings. Where are they publishing these recordings? Which platforms?

And what's the purpose?

I need to think through something here, indulge me if you will.

I think we can agree that cities like Portland, Seattle, and Chicago - among others - are kind of a mess right now. And also run by liberals/leftists.

I'm not yet drawing any conclusions, just baselining. 1/ I'd think it would be pretty difficult for a conservative, or maybe even a moderate, to effectively challenge the mayors of those cities for the forseeable future. I'm making that assumption based on the firmly liberal/leftist/Democrat makeup of the voting public there 2/

Yesterday I ran the primary in my neighborhood as an election judge. It's staggering how many people have difficulty understanding how voting works, and what a primary is. 1/ First of all, all of the people who dragged themselves out in 95🌡 weather were enthusiastic as hell. There wasn't any enthusiasm gap on the Republican side.

And they were eager to vote in person, as @less_tx noted. 2/

I think a lot of people are getting to this point.

https://twitter.com/mosesmosesmoses/status/1279065570571243520

And let me add, I am working early voting for the TX runoff right now in Houston. We can't require people to wear masks to come in to vote.

But we all wear masks. Some wear face shields. For some duties we wear gloves...

So I don't know wtf is going on in our hospital, but I hope it isn't happening everywhere.

My mom, who probably has COPD but hasn't got her docs to give her an official diagnosis, was very short of breath Friday night. Off we go to the ER. 1/ Of course I have to drop her off and leave her. This is around 11 pm.

They get her into a room...

At 9 pm Saturday night. Twenty-two hours later.

With none of her regular meds for an entire day, including pain meds and blood pressure meds. 2/

I am not picking a fight here, I really do want to understand this Someone help me out here.

I just left an @AldiUSA and a woman brought a meat product up to the register. Cashier told her he can't sell it to her because it isn't in their system. 1/ Woman is resigned and goes to bag her groceries. Clerk asks guy working the next register to take it to the cooler when he gets up in a minute.

Second clerk says 'You might as well throw it away.'

I pipe up 'I'm sure that lady would be glad to dispose of that for you.'

I've been avoiding as much of the news as I can, but after hearing all the hatred for @RepThomasMassie , I have to say something. I think we all suspected that this rescue package was going to benefit a lot of cronies. We were all outraged over the additions to the bill by House Democrats. I haven't even looked at the new version, but I'm sure it's still bad.

I just got off the phone with my sister. She works intake at an emergency room, taking information (but no vitals or anything). Her department is short staffed with a few people out sick from non-Corona things. She was happy to cover the short shifts, but was told she can only cover part of them because the hospital is mad about overtime pay. Now. In the middle of a pandemic. The overtime budget is their priority.

Via Leslie May, graphic of the known US #COVID19 COVID19 cases

"Latest data 5 pm - 600 cases in TX / Source New York Times and Johns Hopkins.

"Cases COVID-19 as of this morning, 3/22/2020 -- (thx to Ashley for pointing out cases <30 may not be statistically significant.)" 1/ "This is analysis county by county, then grouping large metro areas together. Here's where the U.S. stands--this is why some decisions needs to be made locally:

Seattle is high as it was hit early and hard in its nursing home population." 2/

@olsonleif @StevenJDuffield Here's the scoop from the ground now.

Harris County (Houston) has 1000+ political subdivisions (precincts) and used to hold general elections in about 600.

Why so few? Staff and location expenses, mostly. (1/x) @olsonleif @StevenJDuffield Election personnel were paid something between $8-12/hr in the past to work the 14 hour days on election day. The two parties recruited their judges, and the judges hired the clerks, and almost everyone was able to vote at a location near them on election day. (2/x)

I can't tell you how frustrated I am with the quality of online presence of the typical conservative. It's so disheartening. 1/x Not to pick on @DavidJHarrisJr, but I came across this in the course of my job today and had to stop and bitch about it.

I just saw the @Project_Veritas video about the election personnel telling them a registered DACA recipient could vote.

There's a lot more going on than they show. Everything starts with Voter Registration. In the video, the woman claims the (imaginary) boyfriend is a DACA recipient and not a citizen, but that he is registered to vote.

This is entirely plausible, given how it works. I don't know if it's happening. But it could be.