UPDATED: Dr. Laura Pressley responds - Fort Bend County commissioners court to conduct workshop on new voting systems; will the systems produce paper backup records?

Fort Bend County Commissioners Court will conduct a workshop to view four new voting systems certified for use in the State of Texas; will the Commissioners ask for confirmation the machines can produce paper backup records?

According to Item 34 posted on the agenda for the Tuesday August 13, 2019 court meeting the commissioners will discuss these systems:

• ExpressVote Marker

• ExpressVote Tabulator

• Hart Verity Voting

• Hart VerityHybrid 

Fort Bend County Commissioners and constituents attending the workshop should ask:

1. Which voting systems produce the statutorily required ballot images required for manual recounts, including storage and printing?


2. Please confirm which systems support the statutorily required ballot images contain the legal components of an official Texas ballot, such as the election name and date, each candidate’s name, voting squares, and a unique serial number as defined by the Texas Constitution?

3. Please confirm each voting system comports with Texas Election Code statutes 66.023 supporting the printing of Early Voting tapes  that report the precinct returns for that location.

Surely no one wants the Texas Secretary of State in a position to ever issue waivers for counties that do not print backup/ results tapes for Early Voting and Election Day, nor does anyone want the Secretary of State to ever issue waivers to all 254 Texas counties NOT to audit paper ballot results.

A County Examiner source revealed that adjacent Harris County, Texas is strongly considering the acquisition of new voting equipment that can produce paper backup records, and we hope Fort Bend does the same.

Updated: Dr. Laura Pressley responds:

Even with a paper ballot backup, voters and candidates must remain vigilant, step up to perform checks on voting results, be central counting station watchers, and hold election administrators accountable to all Texas election laws.

We must ensure the new systems strictly adhere to all Texas’ paper trail  laws:

• Counties must provide for mandated consecutively numbered paper ballots to voters to prevent vote duplication or removal (Texas Election Code 52.062),
• Election Judges must print mandated results tapes for Early Voting (Texas Election Code 66.023) and Election Day (Texas Election Code 66.022 and 66.024),
• Secretary of State, Election Administrators and Central Counting Station Watchers must ensure audit logs of central counting computers record all electronic entries (Texas Administrative Code 81.62(b)).

Election laws shall not be compromised.  Voters and candidates must be courageous to file

election lawsuits when discrepancies and illegalities are discovered.

Dr. Laura Pressley is the Founder of True Texas Elections, LLC and is an advocate for legal, honest, and transparent elections in Texas and across the country. Donate to the effort here.

Affirmation of U.S. citizenship to vote in Florida elections clears first hurdle towards appearing on 2020 ballot

Organizers of an initiative to codify the prerequisite of U.S. citizenship to vote in Florida state elections have cleared a major hurdle towards the proposal appearing on the 2020 ballot.  

Florida Citizen Voters is the sponsor of the initiative petition. The purpose of the proposed Constitutional Amendment is to clarify the language of Article VI Section 2 of the Florida Constitution to reaffirm citizenship is a prerequisite to being permitted to vote in Florida elections.

Certification of more than 76,620 valid petitions collected in at least 25% of the state’s congressional districts was the first threshold cleared by the sponsor.

According to publicly available documents from the Florida Secretary of State,  as of June 13, 2019 Florida Supervisors of Election have certified a total of 85,695 valid petition signatures to the Division of Elections for the initiative petition.

 “This number represents more than 10% of the total number of valid signatures needed from electors statewide and in at least one-fourth of the congressional districts in order to have the initiative placed on the 2020 general election ballot.”

Achievement of this milestone triggers review of the initiative by the Florida Estimating Impact Conference created pursuant to Chapter 100 section 371 Florida Statutes. The FEIC reviews, analyzes, estimates and prepares financial impact statement associated with proposed constitutional amendment to be placed on the ballot by citizen’s initiative petition.

With passage of HB 5 during the 2019 Legislative Session the FEIC will also consider the estimated economic impact on state and local economies plus the overall impact to the state budget.

The Florida Channel broadcast the first public workshop of the FIEC review on August 1, 2019.