Officials: All voting equipment for Houston, Harris County destroyed in 3-alarm fire
HOUSTON – A three-alarm fire swept through a northeast Houston warehouse early Friday wiping out more than 10,000 pieces of voting equipment, but officials said voters should have nothing to worry about when the elections begin in a few months.
The Harris County Election Technology Center, located on Canino at Downey, caught fire around 4:20 a.m., and the blaze quickly grew to three alarms.
The warehouse stored more than 10,000 pieces of equipment, including voting booths and eSlates, the computer-based machines used for collecting votes. Officials estimate the total damages at $30 million.
The fire comes just months before the general elections on November 2, which include the governor’s race. Early voting is scheduled to begin in October.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Harris County elections gear goes up in flames
"By the time firefighters arrived, the building was already a third involved," Houston Fire Department spokesperson Pat Trahan told ABC-13, the Examiners’ broadcast news partner. At least 200 firefighters were on the scene, Trahan said. The fire was out by 9 a.m., and arson investigators went to work immediately to establish a cause.
Speculation abounds at this time with many theories and questions, Why was there no alarm system? Why were all voting machines in one location? What impact will this have on the upcoming election where choosing a Texas Governor tops the ballot? Will paper ballots be allowed? In summary, right now there are more questions than answers and much uncertainty regarding the impact on Harris County voters that total over a million and how this will play out over the coming election season. Houston voters heavily favor Bill White (D) in the upcoming election over Rick Perry (R) who is running for re-election. White is Houston's former Mayor and has very high regard in Harris county.
Houston Chronicle reports:Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman this morning said she is confident of timely, clean elections in November, even as a fire that destroyed the county's entire inventory of 10,000 electronic voting machines still burned.
Kaufman urged voters to cast their ballots early to help the county cope with a possible shortage of equipment on election day.
"Because I don’t expect to have 10,000 pieces to work with, no matter what we do, I’m sure that we’re going to be putting on a full court press urging people to vote early," Kaufman said.
Update from: Brad Blog
Former KPFT (Houston Pacifica) radio host and election integrity advocate Pokey Anderson tells us there are some 1.8 million registered voters in Harris County, the third largest in the nation. "Harris County is huge," she writes via email this morning, "est. pop for 2006 is 3.6 million people, which is larger than the population of 23 states. That is about the size of Iowa and Vermont combined."
KTRH NewsRadio reports County Clerk Beverly Kaufman is hoping to "depend on other counties around the state, even across the country, to donate similar machines." Until God tried to intervene this morning, Harris County used 100% unverifiable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems made by Austin-based Hart Intercivic.
A source familiar with Hart Intercivic tells The BRAD BLOG that the nation's fourth-largest e-voting company has fallen on hard times of late and does not have machines to ship to replace those lost in the fire.
If they can't get "similar machines" from somewhere, how, oh, how will the citizens of Houston be able to have elections this year?! Especially since pieces of paper, pens, eyeballs, citizen oversight and common frickin' sense were all long ago outlawed in Harris County, Texas, apparently.
MSNBC
This is certainly going to spark some conspiracy theories in the competitive Rick Perry-vs.-Bill White gubernatorial contest in Texas. Harris County is Houston, where White was mayor and where his base should come from on Election Day.