So. Election Day. Not very high-profile today in Houston, but elections are always interesting to me. I try to avoid trafficking in electoral predictions because they're a great way to look foolish, but what the heck. A little skin in the game makes it more fun, right? So, inspired by Greg and Jennifer Radcliffe, here's what I think.
Mayor - The over/under line for Mayor White is 90%. I think he just slides over it.
Council At Large #5 - It's tough, but I'm going to guess Zaf Tahir and Jolanda Jones make it into the runoff. Like Greg, I think there are several scenarios that are about equally likely to occur, so I will not be surprised at all to be wrong about this one. I think the leading candidates will have about 20% of the vote, and that as many as six candidates could get at least ten percent.
Council Districts D, E, and I - I'm not in these districts, so I'm not too comfortable making predictions about them. That said, I think Wanda Adams will lead the field in D, and I think I is close enough that there will still be a runoff even with third candidate Brad Batteau drawing three percent or so.
Other contested Council races - Incumbents across the board. No surprises.
HISD and HCCS Trustees - Again, no predictions. But don't let that stop you from making some!
HISD bond referendum - Passes with a close margin, say 52-48. Go read Greg for the number-crunching.
Harris County bonds - All pass, none in any danger of not passing. Which sucks for Prop 3, but what are you gonna do?
State constitutional amendments - All pass, though some of the bond proposals are close, say less than 55%.
That's what I think. What do you think? Fire away in the comments.
Posted by Charles Kuffner on November 06, 2007 to Election 2007Voting this morning SUCKED!
My normal precinct is Pine Presbyterian Church but I arrived to find that it was changed to Bendwood Elementary nearby. So I go to Bendwood, but before I can get close to the school. I'm stopped by a woman in front of the school who say, "There is no voting here today. I don't know why people are coming that's wrong. Now please move your car"
Protests were met with "Then you should call the county." I went back to Pines and reread the notice. As I was leaving I noticed the parking lot on the back side of the Bendwood Elementary were 2 precinct border signs.
My precinct was crammed with 6 voting booths in the lobby of the school. It was hot and the precinct workers reported that the AC that had been working well during setup was now off. (Hmmm, voting on an SBISD bond election to renovate some schools including new AC in a hot cramped SBISD school lobby...curious.)
As I checked in, "Sir, your going to have to wait for a few minutes. We're having problems with one of the voting booths and we're going to have to reboot the system." Rebooting sounds like a nice technical term that really means we're going to unplug it and pop off the battery for a minute.
So I get to work and hop on the Harris County Voter website to find somebody to contact about the person not knowing that the precinct is at the other entrance of the school. I want to double check my precinct number and click on the "Find Your Polling Location" hyperlink on the Voter Registriation Records site ( http://www.hcvoter.com/voter/voterintro.asp ) and lo and behold The page cannot be found.
So here's the hyperlink to the page it's trying to find - http://www.hcvoter.com/voter/voter/voter.asp
I do enough surfin on the net to notice that this address may have one too many /voters in it. So I cut it out and it works.
Nice. I can't imagine why people may want to use a page pointing out polling places on FREAKING ELECTION DAY!
So I called and was directed to Bev Kaufman's office told them about polling place and the website.
"Sir, the website is not part of this office. You need to call the Tax office."
So here I am on hold waiting for the systems guys to contact me.
Posted by: Patrick on November 6, 2007 9:21 AMPatrick, that may be the best testimonial for voting early I've ever seen.
Posted by: Charles Kuffner on November 6, 2007 9:55 AMI've left Houston, and I just found out that I registered to vote one day too late to vote in Galveston. So for the first time in a while I won't be voting today.
Posted by: Jim D on November 6, 2007 11:45 AMYeah, I know. But early voting locations out here are several miles away most near the ripped up Katy which makes it an extra pain, while my precinct is less than a quarter mile from my door.
That and voting is a "Late to work" get out of jail free card.
They fixed the link BTW.
Posted by: Patrick on November 6, 2007 12:36 PM