Mail in Ballots are Vehicles for Fraud

The Democrat Party is trying to establish mail in voting in Texas using the courts. So far they have not been successful. There is ample evidence that shows fraud exists in mail in ballots.

Paxton has also maintained that a broader absentee ballot program will ripen the opportunity for fraud. Since 2004, the OAG states it has “successfully prosecuted” 457 instances of fraud with 75 currently under investigation.

An official within the OAG confirmed to The Texan, that about two-thirds of the election fraud cases involve absentee ballots.

School trustees move election to Nov. 3

Georgetown ISD trustees voted unanimously Tuesday evening to move the district’s May 2 board election to Nov. 3. Five candidates have filed for two positions on the board.

City Elections Moved to November 3, 2020

Courtesy of Councilman Fought's newsletter:

Question-4.  City elections, for City Council and the Mayor, are set for May. I understand they have now been changed to 3 November.  Is that correct? 

 

ANS-4.  Yes.  The Council made that decision at the 24 March Council Meeting, following considerable debate.  There were three general arguments:

 

1.  Delay the decision to make the change until we had more information.

2.  Move the date, but make it a date earlier than November, so as not to mix the local election with the national election.

3.  Move the date to November so as to coincide with the national elections.*

 

I voted in favor of changing the date to November and making it coincide with the national elections because:

 

1.  That gives voters the most time to get to know the candidates and understand their positions.

2.  Making the local election coincide with the national election would most likely assure the highest voter turnout.

3.  Having 1 election for local and national offices, would save $ and probably generate more attention, and less frustration or "election fatigue", than having 2 independent elections.

 

In my simple world, if you give voters the greatest opportunity to understand the issues and the candidates, and get the largest voter turnout, you will get the best results.  Only option 3 accomplished that, so I voted for option 3.

Wilco Elections Will Not Host May Elections

Even though the City has not announced that the city elections will not take place May 2, Wilco Elections has announced they will not support May elections.

In a March 18 email obtained by Community Impact Newspaper, Williamson County Elections Administrator Chris Davis said the department will not be holding any local entities in May and asked entities to postpone their elections until the Nov. 3 election. If the entity chooses to continue with a May election, they will have to host the election themselves. 

"Please be advised that our office will not be conducting a May 2, 2020 election for any political subdivision. A political subdivision that opts not to postpone their election to November 3, 2020 will be responsible for administrating the elections themselves," the email read.

When Will City Announce Election Delay?

City Council unanimously voted March 19 to extend the local disaster declaration issued by Mayor Dale Ross on March 14 through May 11.

The extension follows a March 18 order from County Judge, Bill Gravell, which limits gatherings of 10 or more and closed County facilities through May 11. 

Yet we see no announcement about moving the May 2 city election to a later date!

How about some consistency City Council?

City Elections Coming Up

City and school board elections are coming up in May, 2020.

Early voting is April 20 to 28. Election day is May 2 and the last day to register is April 2.

Shawn Hood, Lisa King and Jason Wirth have filed to run in District 2; Rachael Jonrowe and Michael Walton have filed to run in District 6; and Larry Brundidge, Jonathan Dade and Josh Schroeder have filed to run for Mayor.

A Mayoral Forum sponsored by the Sun City Republican Club (SCRC) is scheduled at its regular monthly meeting in the Sun City Ballroom on March 19th. All three candidates--Larry Brundidge, Jonathan Dade, and Josh Schroeder--will be participating. Non-members can attend, but have to sit in the chairs lined up at the very back of the ballroom. If you are planning to do this, you should arrive about 6:30-6:45 pm.

On Saturday, April 4th, a Mayoral and City Council Forum is being sponsored by the Wilco Sun and Wilco League of Women Voters:
This event will be from 2:00 - 5:00 pm at the Georgetown Public Library, 402 W. Eight Street. A forum for the Georgetown ISD Board of Trustees will be held later in April.

Candidate for GISD Board

A candidate for the GISD Board has emerged that appears to want to take on the "real" issues facing the students in Georgetown.

Francis Jackson has filed as a candidate for Place 4 on the GISD Board of Trustees.

In an interview with the Wilcosun on February 26, 2020, he articulated his concerns and approaches to change the Board and administration focus.

He is running on a platform of “well-thought-out change.” “Georgetown is in trouble,” he said, citing the district’s multi-year decline in the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) program.

Mr. Jackson is outspoken about Superintendent Fred Brent’s salary — $319,534 in 2018-19. He said it’s too high for a district of 12,000 students. “He’s the 24th highest-paid superintendent in Texas,” Mr. Jackson noted, citing data from the Texas Education Agency.

He also believes that the superintendent and senior administrator's pay should depend on meeting or surpassing state averages on STAR scores. This is a transparent way to hold them accountable.

For those citizens in the GISD, this candidate provides an opportunity to vote for a person with a focus on accountability, both for student achievement and financially.

City Election May 2

The municipal election on May 2 for the City of Georgetown will include candidates for mayor and the District 2 and District 6 city council seats. The filing deadline was Feb. 14 at 5 p.m.

Candidates for Mayor are Larry Brundidge, Jonathan Dade, and Josh Schroeder; candidates for District 2 are Shawn Hood, Lisa King, and Jason Wirth; and candidates for District 6 are Rachael Jonrowe (incumbent) and Michael Walton.

To see maps of council districts, go to maps.georgetown.org/council-district-maps.
The last day to register to vote in the May election is April 2.

Early in-person voting is April 20-28. In the early voting period, voters may cast ballots at any early voting location in Williamson County. Early voting polling places, dates, and times will be listed at wilco.org/elections.

On election day on May 2, voters may cast ballots at any vote center location in Williamson County. Polling places, dates, and times will be listed at wilco.org/elections.

Georgetown City Government Candidates

The filing deadline for an elected position in the governance of Georgetown has passed. The election is May 2, 2020.

Three newcomers are running for Georgetown mayor in the May 2 election while City Council Member Rachael Jonrowe will face one opponent challenging her for her seat. Austin Statesman 

Three people are also running for a Georgetown council seat left open when incumbent Valerie Nicholson decided not to seek re-election.

Jonrowe is seeking her fourth term against Michael Walton, an IBM manager.

Larry Brundidge, a retired construction company owner, is running for the mayor's seat against Jonathan Dade, a rabbi for the Messiah Echad congregation, and Joshua Schroeder, a real estate attorney.
Mayor Dale Ross has announced he will not be running again in order to concentrate on his accounting business and his family.

The candidates for the District 2 council seat are Shawn Hood, an architectural designer, Lisa King, a clothing business owner, and Jason Wirth, a construction company project manager.

Nicholson, the District 2 incumbent, is not seeking re-election so she can focus on her family and career. 

The mayor and city council members all serve three-year terms.

Voter Fraud in Texas

There is voter fraud in Texas and all must be on-guard to assure that it is not happening in Georgetown or Williamson County. Here is an excellent video describing the fraud in the Valley of Southern Texas.

One of the best ways to assure voter fraud is not happening is to work at the polls, both early voting and election day. A poll worker has the ability to observe what is happening at the polling location. Although one won't get rich, poll workers are paid.

The Wilco Elections office must assure that there are not fraudulent mail-in ballots, as that is a major source of fraud as described in the video.

Beware of Effort to Change Selection of Texas Judges

During the 2019 legislative session, the House and Senate voted for – and the governor signed – legislation creating a commission to study Texas’ judicial selection process. Only 11 members of the House and six members of the Senate opposed the legislation.

The commission is comprised of several House and Senate members, as well as individuals appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor, and House speaker.

At the commission’s first meeting two weeks ago, several appointed members let it slip they wanted to remove the “party label” from judges. That’s been put forward in the past as the first step to taking judicial slots off the ballot altogether.

Nonpartisan elections result in voters electing judges who are significantly more liberal than the population. They also deprive voters of important information about the ideological views of judicial candidates.

Recall the Republican Party of Texas’ platform explicitly calls for protecting the right of citizens to elect judges.

The fastest way for Texans to lose their right to elect judges would be to stop participating in judicial races. Citizens need to be asking more direct questions of those men and women who seek to don the black robe and take up a gavel. Texans need to press them harder, and not let ourselves be intimidated by the titles. Just like presidents, governors, and school board members, judges make decisions affecting all of us. They must work for, and be answerable to, the people.

Be on guard against politicians who would deprive citizens the right to directly elect Texas judges!

MUD Facts

Municipal Utility Districts, MUDs, are a little known taxing entity authorized by state law. In addition to property taxes, MUD residents also pay Emergency Services District (ESD) taxes, school district taxes, county taxes and sometimes other property based taxes.

MUDs are usually established by a developer to establish a taxing authority that allows bonds to be issued for the construction of water, storm drainage and sewer lines including processing facilities. This transfers the initial construction costs from the developer to the home buyer or business operator.

For instance, MUD #25, cited in the previous post, has authority to tax property at $0.92 per $100 valuation. This is more than twice Georgetown's tax rate of $0.42 per $100 valuation.

The law governing MUDs also provides for the election of a board of directors to govern the MUD. Often these boards issue huge amounts of debt for recreational and community facilities, such as are found in the Brushy Creek MUD between Round Rock and Cedar Park.

Brushy Creek MUD incurred large bond debts to preclude them from being annexed by Austin or any other adjoining city, since the annexing city would have to assume the MUD debt.

One consequence of MUDs is that it allows cities to extract money from the MUD residents to support its own utility developments in excess of what a city can charge city residents because of the higher property tax rates that MUDs are allowed to impose. This occurs when MUDs sign agreements with cities for essential services such as waste water and potable water treatment.

Election Tibits

After three days of early voting, the Sun City voters are really turning out.

Click image to enlarge

Over 20% of votes cast so far have been cast by Sun City voters with Cedar Park voters at Randalls and the Library casting almost 15% of the votes.

Another measure of growth in our area is the number of registered voters. Williamson County had 344,257 registered voters as of the registration cut-off date of October 7, 2019. County voters registered since the cut-off date for the 2016 election have increased by 37,446. That is an increase of 12% or an annual rate of 3.91%.

The registered voters in the City of Georgetown has also increased from 38,634 in May 2017 to 43,633 currently. That is almost a 5% annual growth rate and is somewhat larger than the overall annual population growth rate of 4.3%. This difference may be explained by the growth rate in Sun City where most people register to vote.

Another Candidate for Mayor!

Josh Schroeder has announced his candidacy for Mayor of Georgetown.

As Mayor, he wants to help steer Georgetown’s future.

“Some folks want us to remain a small town. Some want us to be a big giant city. Some want to remain a distinct city apart from oth­er suburbs that surround us.”

Mr. Schroeder is an attor­ney at Georgetown-based Sneed, Vine and Perry, a for­mer chair of both the Plan­ning and Zoning Commis­sion and the Zoning Board of Adjustment for the city, and current chair of the Historic and Architectural Review Commission.

He also is a member of the city’s 2030 Plan Steer­ing Committee. The plan will be a road map to guide Georgetown’s growth and future development deci­sions.

Mr. Schroeder plans to focus on land use and devel­opment, his passion, because they tie in with oth­er issues such as transportation, public safety and the budget.

As former chair of the Planning and Zoning Commission, he said he was faced with develop­ment application concerns from developers, res­idents and city staff.

Mr. Schroeder said it was all about balancing the different needs of the com­munity.“I feel like we were able to do that when I was on P&Z in a way that even if commissioners didn’t agree on a particular application, we had a civil debate and good back and forth with staff without being antagonistic,” he said. He added that he hopes to bring that skill to the dais as mayor and keep everyone moving forward to­gether.

Jonathan Dade is the other announced candidate for Mayor and his announcement will be covered in another post.

The 2020 election is May 2.

Unbelievable Austin Statesman Editorial

The Austin Statesman newspaper editorial board has blatantly endorsed a NO vote on Proposition 4 to amend the Texas Constitution to make it virtually impossible to impose a state income tax.

This position is against 70% of Texas voters as shown in a recent poll.

The audacity of the major newspaper in Austin, the Capitol of Texas, to call for voters to defeat Proposition 4 and allow current or future legislatures to impose an income tax by a simple majority vote is truly mind boggling!

They decry the loss of a potential revenue stream for the State that would allow government to grow ever larger. It is clear what a ever growing government does to taxes and public safety. Just look at the Austin city government with their attempts to impose health insurance requirements on all businesses and their non-solutions to a growing homelessness and drug problem on the streets of Austin. The list goes on as the progressives/socialists try to reduce individual freedoms and exert more control over our individual lives.

Here is the key statement: "We strongly urge voters to defeat Prop 4."

Ignore the Statesman's recommendation and vote for Proposition 4! Control the growth of government by limiting its income sources!

Chisholm Trail Special Utility District Disolved

For Your Information

The Chisholm Trail Special Utility District has dissolved as a governmental entity. At a public hearing on Sept. 30, the district board members voted unanimously to dissolve and adopted an order of dissolution. The district was officially and formally dissolved this week.

Facing challenges with water availability and financing, the district approached the City of Georgetown in 2011 about the possibility of merging the two water systems. After two years of feasibility studies, public meetings, and hearings, the board voted unanimously in 2013 to consolidate the two water systems.

The merger was approved by the Public Utility Commission of Texas in 2014 and the assets and liabilities of the district were transferred to the City of Georgetown water utility. At that time, Chisholm Trail SUD water customers became City of Georgetown water customers, and Chisholm Trail employees became Georgetown employees.

The merger and transfer of service area was approved unanimously by the PUC in 2015 and subsequently affirmed in a series of legal challenges. Senate Bill 248, passed by the Texas Legislature in 2017, allowed Chisholm Trail SUD to dissolve after Aug. 31, 2019, whether or not third-party legal actions were resolved.

Due to the deadline to cancel an election, which was in August, candidates for the Chisholm Trail SUD board will be on the Nov. 5 ballot for residents who live in the former service area of the district. Votes will be tabulated and reported in the election. However, candidates in the election will not be seated or serve on the Chisholm Trail SUD board since the district no longer exists as a legal entity.

Court Says Federal Oversight of Texas Redistricting Not Required

It is time that the Federal Courts recognize Texas soverignty.Statesman

A panel of federal judges on Wednesday said Texas lawmakers can draw political districts in 2021 without federal oversight for the first time in decades, possibly the final chapter in a protracted legal battle over voting rights and the state’s political maps.

But the panel ultimately sided with lawyers for the state and said requiring federal oversight during the next redistricting cycle “would be inappropriate,” given a Supreme Court ruling last year that found no evidence that Republican lawmakers drew the state’s current political districts with the intent to discriminate against minority voters.

Progressives Against Voter Integrity Bill

In a surprise to this blogger, the Williamson County Elections Administrator, testified against the proposed election integrity bill, SB9. Senate Bill 9

Chris Davis, president of the Texas Association of Election Administrators, said the bill would turn away hard-to-get poll workers and election judges because of the added regulations placed on them that must be followed or risk criminal punishment.

The original SB9 would require a paper trail for recount or audit purposes and would explicitly disallow the Secretary of State from waiving state election law. The substitute bill under consideration by the Texas house did not include these provisions. Yet the Association of Election Administrators still testified against the bill passage.

Maybe it's time to consider election of Election Administrators instead of appointment by the county commissioners!

Integrity in our elections is fundamental to preserving our republic and the rights of individuals!

Texas Tax Burden

Want more proof that taxes in Texas are too high? Check out the latest data!

click to enlarge

Texas ranks #2 in local debt per capita among all 50 states. This is not an honor to be #2! Debt is paid by taxes, so more debt means more taxes.

What drives the debt and thus taxes? Spending of course! All our local taxing authorities need to rein in their spending. Just because property valuations increase at double digit rates is no reason for spending to grow at double digit rates.

Debt payments can crowd out money for essential services and individuals have less money to spends which negatively impacts economic growth and entrepreneurship. In other words, debt is "bad".

Let your council members, county commissioners, school boards and other taxing entities know they need to restrict spending to no more than inflation plus population growth. Oh wait!, It appears the state legislature may limit revenue growth to either 2.5% or 3.5% unless an automatic vote of the people authorizes higher revenue growth.

Stay tuned!

New Voting Machines

It appears that the elected officials in Texas are finally beginning to address the problems of voter fraud. The purchase of voting machines with auditable paper records is a valuable step, but, only a step towards ensuring vote integrity. The Wilco Sun reported in the January 13, 2019 issue that the elections administrator is moving ahead.

Pending Commissioners Court approval, Williamson County voters should anticipate using new voting machines when November elections roll around.

Elections Administrator Chris Davis said he expects the county to spend about $4.5 million to buy 800 to 900 new touch-screen voting machines this year. They would replace machines in use for a decade or more. “Our hope is we can [approve] a purchase in mid-to late spring,” Mr. Davis said. 

Budget Officer Ashlie Koenig said commissioners budgeted $4.5 million for new machines in August 2018, as part of the county’s overall $364 million budget for fiscal 2018-19. She said commissioners will still need to OK whatever specific machines Mr. Davis proposes. “He is not allowed to make that purchase until the court blesses it,” Ms. Koenig explained. 

The machines under consideration would create a paper trail for ballots. Each voting machine would print a piece of paper the voter can examine to ensure the ballot was cast correctly. “People want that paper copy to back up the electronic ballot,” Ms. Koenig said. Mr. Davis said voters should not think the printout would be a “receipt” they can take with them when they leave the polling place. Voters would put that piece of paper into an electronic tabulations box, from where it would later be counted. 

Mr. Davis said training for election workers and a public awareness campaign will be offered in advance of November elections for cities, school boards and any constitutional amendments the state legislature might propose.

There are other issues to be addressed in the current voting system. The principle issue is securing and isolating the counting computer from any and all unauthorized equipment and personnel that may contaminate the counting of the votes.

Look for legislation in the 86th Texas Legislature that will address these issues.

Remember, Joseph Stalin said some version of "It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes."

The citizens must be vigilant if our Republic is to be preserved.