While lawmakers push additional ID requirements for casting ballots, a flawed computer database is purging already qualified voters from the rolls.
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle May 5, 2007, 8:33PM
Editorial
Early balloting around the state for the May 12 election has resulted in long delays and frayed tempers in many locales. The difficulties had nothing to do with the unproven election fraud cited by state legislators as a justification for new laws mandating more extensive ID from voters.Read more
Instead, hundreds of people who went to the polls found their names had been removed because of glitches in a $14 million Web-based state computer program intended to centralize voter registration lists.
In a particularly embarrassing episode, the mayor of Prairie View, Frank Jackson, discovered when he attempted to vote early that his name and registration had vanished from the state-compiled list.
The IBM-Hart InterCivic system had been selected at the direction of former Secretary of State Geoffrey Connor, an appointee of Gov. Rick Perry, despite the fact it cost $800,000 more than a proven competitor, VOTEC. After the purchase, the vendor then substituted an untried computer system that is giving fits to election officials around the state.
See other coverage of the problem
