A new 10-minute video by investigative reporter Wayne Dolcefino shows heat maps of Republican-leaning areas in Harris County and where voting problems occurred in the November 2022 elections. Superimposing one on top of the other shows that virtually all of the areas running out of ballot paper occurred in Republican strongholds.
Experts estimate the chances of that happening by accident at less than 1%.
Dolcefino
County Officials Still Stonewalling Document Requests
Dolcefino filed a lawsuit earlier this year because of Harris County’s refusal to provide public records relating to the election. Gallery-Furniture-owner Jim McIngvale is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
A computer expert named Russ Long from the oil and gas industry painstakingly pieced together the maps using data from other sources. Long began by sorting out the addresses of people who voted in Republican, but not Democratic primaries in 1150 voting precincts in Harris County. From that he identified the Republican-leaning precincts.
Red areas show clusters of Republican voters.
Paper Galore, But Not Evenly Distributed
Long is also a precinct captain in Cypress, TX. When he picked up ballot paper, he could immediately see that it wasn’t enough. Long told them he needed double the amount, but was told no more was available – despite the county having ordered 4 million sheets, far more than the number of registered voters in the county.
HarrisVotes.com shows that approximately 830,000 people voted early in person or by mail. About another 1.1 million voted on Election Day. Only the race for governor had more than 1.1 million ballots cast on Election Day and that total was 1,102,418. So there should have been two million extra sheets of paper.
Yet 121 polling places ran out of paper. And look where virtually all of them were!
Voter suppression in action.
Despite the problems, County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who chairs the Elections Commission, has not called a meeting of the commission since November, according to Dolcefino. Nor has the county released election records requested by Dolcefino under the Texas Public Information Act.
“The release of this information related to our election is way past due,” said Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey.
“What’s wrong with sunshine? Shine the light on it,” said McIngvale.
Early Voting Starts Next Month for Next Election
It will take months to resolve these issues in the courts or the legislature. Dolcefino emphasizes the need for full disclosure now. We have another election in May. Early voting starts on April 24th, in a little more than a month. And we’ve had five months of stonewalling since the last election.
“None of the Democratic-leaning precincts came close to running out of ballots,” said Dolcefino.
Long added, “There would have been riots in the streets if they had.”
The problems may be worse than Dolcefino is reporting. For instance, the map above shows only one polling place in Kingwood that ran out of ballot paper. But I personally know of at least two.
And Dolcefino has not yet even reported on the problems with handicapped voting. Reliable sources tell me of technology problems countywide associated with curbside voting for handicapped people. Again, I personally witnessed those at multiple locations.
Elections Administrator Hired Despite Reported Problems on Last Job
According to Dolcefino’s video, Clifford Tatum, the Elections Administrator, reportedly ran into problems with a similar job he held in Washington D.C.
Previously, the people who ran Harris County elections were elected themselves. Hidalgo changed that, however. She created an office of Elections Administration with an appointed head. Tatum is Hidalgo’s second head of that office. The first resigned after problems with an earlier election.
Many races on last November’s ballot were decided by just a few hundred votes. Without actual records, it’s impossible to tell whether ballot issues skewed election results.
We need to get to the bottom of these problems sooner rather than later. If Hidalgo has nothing to hide, why hide it?
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/10/2023
2019 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Paper-Problem-Map.jpg?fit=1200%2C683&ssl=16831200adminadmin2023-03-10 19:37:192023-03-11 07:22:37Nearly All Voting Problems in Republican Strongholds
On March 9, 2023, the Climate Prediction Center of the National Weather Service (NWS) announced that La Niña conditions which persisted for 3-years have finally ended. But we are not shifting directly into El Niño. Instead, we’re entering a transitional phase. NWS expects neutral conditions to continue through the Northern Hemisphere into spring and early summer of 2023.
La Niña and El Niño represent opposite phases of what meteorologists call ENSO, the El Niño Southern Oscillation in the Pacific Ocean. They govern recurring climate patterns across the tropical Pacific and have a cascade of global side effects, says NWS.
The patterns shift back and forth irregularly every two to seven years. This past La Niña phase lasted three years, an unusually long time.
NWS predicts that ENSO-neutral conditions will continue through the spring. The weather service also predicts El Niño conditions to form during summer 2023 and persist through the fall.
Impacts on Weather
The oscillation brings predictable shifts in ocean surface and atmospheric temperatures. These shifts disrupt the wind and rainfall patterns across the tropics.
El Niño brings cooler, wetter conditions to the southern U.S. in winter months. It also brings stronger steering currents that can disrupt low-pressure systems coming off the coast of Africa that turn into hurricanes.
La Niña, on the other hand, usually means less disruption, more Atlantic storms, and deeper droughts in the southern U.S. But we’re finally putting the most recent La Niña behind us.
ENSO Influence on Atlantic and Pacific Hurricane Seasons
The continental United States and Caribbean Islands have a substantially decreased chance of experiencing a hurricane during El Niño and an increased chance of experiencing a hurricane during La Niña. These maps (by NOAA Climate.gov, based on originals by Gerry Bell) explain why.
Typical El Niño effects on Pacific and Atlantic seasonal hurricane activity.
Overall, El Niño contributes to more eastern and central Pacific hurricanes and fewer Atlantic hurricanes. Conversely, La Niña contributes to fewer eastern and central Pacific hurricanes and more Atlantic hurricanes – exactly the opposite.
Typical La Niña effects on Pacific and Atlantic seasonal hurricane activity.
Other Influences on Hurricane Formation: AMO
NOAA also says that other oscillations, such as the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation (AMO) also influence hurricane formation. Thewarm phase of the AMO is associated with warmer sea surface temperatures and high hurricane activity in the main development region of the Atlantic between Western Africa and the Caribbean.
“The hurricane activity in any given season often reflects a combination of the multi-decadal signals and ENSO,” says NOAA.
For More Information
For a fuller discussion of how El Niño and La Niña influence other aspects of weather worldwide, check out NOAA’s Climate.gov, especially the FAQ page.
Also, the Associated Press ran an interesting story this morning by Seth Borenstein. The headline: “La Nina, which worsens hurricanes and drought, is gone.”
Borenstein says NOAA gives El Niño a 60% chance of returning this fall. But there’s also a 5% chance that La Niña will return for an unprecedented fourth winter.
We should have more certainty in a few months.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/9/23
2018 Days since Hurricane Harvey
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/El-Nino-Effects.jpg?fit=610%2C320&ssl=1320610adminadmin2023-03-09 13:30:112023-03-09 13:59:17NWS Says La Niña Has Ended, Likely Impact on Weather
While major cities and counties throughout Texas post maps and detailed descriptions of their road-bond spending and projects, Harris County does not.
In June 2022, County Commissioner Adrian Garcia pitched bonds for roads, parks and public safety totaling $1.2 billion. It included $900 million for roads, $200 million for parks and $100 million for public-safety infrastructure.
Commissioners Tom Ramsey and Jack Cagle tried to slow the bond offering down until projects could be identified, prioritized, and estimated. However, Garcia, with the help of Commissioner Rodney Ellis and County Judge Lina Hidalgo, put the bond on the November ballot and it passed with little disclosure.
A series of poorly advertised and attended public meetings provided no details as to how the money would be spent except for some high-level breakdowns between roads and parks. Neither did the bond website – despite promises made in Commissioners Court that it would.
Nine months later, Harris County still has not provided any details.
Rahman Presentation to ACEC Now Public
Dr. Milton Rahman, P.E., PMP, CFM, ENV SP., Executive Director and County Engineer did provide a project update earlier this month about the bond to the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) Houston. However, it provided only a little more detail than we already knew about how the money would be allocated. And it provided no location-specific data about where the money would be spent, i.e., which stretches of roads.
Looking only at transportation and drainage (second table), Precinct 3 will receive approximately $70 to $90 million less than Precincts 1 and 2and $40 less than Precinct 4.
To qualify for any funding, roads must have a Pavement Condition Index below 40 (very poor to failing). But in scoring, roads will also be ranked by their surrounding population and the number of socially vulnerable residents. (See below).
The road bond was broken up into five different segments; this was one.For those other criteria, see the slide below.Note references to population and social vulnerability. Rahman did not specify the weights given to these other factors.
Rahman did assign weights to partnership dollars, but he fails to define the factors. For instance, what does he mean by “project area” below? It gets a whopping 25% of the weight.
In short, he still won’t say wherethe money will go.
11X More for Admin than in Flood Bond 5X Larger
But Dr. Rahman does plan to take $110 million for management and administration. Compare that to the $10 million allocated for admin in 2018 flood bond that totaled $5 billion with partner funding. Dr. Rahman will take 11 times more for a bond one-fifth the size. It’s even more than the $100 million being invested in public-safety facilities which were so sorely in need of help before the election!
The County disclosed none of this to voters before they voted on the bond.
Even now, five months later, with the little information we have, I would find it impossible to make an informed decision based on this vague, high-level, process-oriented information presented by Dr. Rahman. But I do have deep suspicions that the $110 million could go to pay raises for political hires.
Rahman Withholding Pavement Condition Information
Even though Harris County has calculated a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) for every road in the county, it has not published the information. Nor did the Engineering Department supply the PCI report to ReduceFlooding.com in response to a direct request.
And even through Dr. Rahmen has already allocated the money, nowhere in his report does he address the number of lane miles needing repair in each precinct.
Other Oddities
For the record, Precinct 3 will receive the least money by far. It has almost half the county’s lane miles to maintain (47%) but will receive less than one-fifth of the bond money allocated to roads and drainage.
Moreover, large portions of Precincts 1 and 2 fall within the City of Houston and other municipalities such as Pasadena and Baytown. Thus they share responsibility and costs.
Finally, before redistricting, Commissioner Garcia made sure that most of the bad roads in his Precinct 2 magically wound up in Precinct 3.
With all the other factors folded in, there’s no guarantee most of Precinct 3’s roads will ever see 2022 road bond money.
Other Areas Far More Transparent
Because of the complexity of allocating bond dollars, virtually all major cities and counties in Texas simply publish maps that show where bond money will go.
But not in Harris County! That would be too simple. And why be transparent when you can keep people in the dark and avoid complaints about fairness?
To see how transparently other areas treat their voters, consult the links below.
When governments go out of their way to conceal information as certain commissioners have here, it raises the question “Why?”
It’s time you started demanding answers to that question. Your safety is at stake.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/8/23
2017 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
https://i0.wp.com/reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230308-Screenshot-2023-03-08-at-6.24.35-PM.jpg?fit=1200%2C674&ssl=16741200adminadmin2023-03-08 20:50:492023-03-08 23:44:44Other Areas Disclose Road-Bond Spending Details, But Not Harris County
Nearly All Voting Problems in Republican Strongholds
A new 10-minute video by investigative reporter Wayne Dolcefino shows heat maps of Republican-leaning areas in Harris County and where voting problems occurred in the November 2022 elections. Superimposing one on top of the other shows that virtually all of the areas running out of ballot paper occurred in Republican strongholds.
County Officials Still Stonewalling Document Requests
Dolcefino filed a lawsuit earlier this year because of Harris County’s refusal to provide public records relating to the election. Gallery-Furniture-owner Jim McIngvale is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
A computer expert named Russ Long from the oil and gas industry painstakingly pieced together the maps using data from other sources. Long began by sorting out the addresses of people who voted in Republican, but not Democratic primaries in 1150 voting precincts in Harris County. From that he identified the Republican-leaning precincts.
Paper Galore, But Not Evenly Distributed
Long is also a precinct captain in Cypress, TX. When he picked up ballot paper, he could immediately see that it wasn’t enough. Long told them he needed double the amount, but was told no more was available – despite the county having ordered 4 million sheets, far more than the number of registered voters in the county.
HarrisVotes.com shows that approximately 830,000 people voted early in person or by mail. About another 1.1 million voted on Election Day. Only the race for governor had more than 1.1 million ballots cast on Election Day and that total was 1,102,418. So there should have been two million extra sheets of paper.
Yet 121 polling places ran out of paper. And look where virtually all of them were!
Despite the problems, County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who chairs the Elections Commission, has not called a meeting of the commission since November, according to Dolcefino. Nor has the county released election records requested by Dolcefino under the Texas Public Information Act.
“The release of this information related to our election is way past due,” said Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey.
“What’s wrong with sunshine? Shine the light on it,” said McIngvale.
Early Voting Starts Next Month for Next Election
It will take months to resolve these issues in the courts or the legislature. Dolcefino emphasizes the need for full disclosure now. We have another election in May. Early voting starts on April 24th, in a little more than a month. And we’ve had five months of stonewalling since the last election.
“None of the Democratic-leaning precincts came close to running out of ballots,” said Dolcefino.
Long added, “There would have been riots in the streets if they had.”
The problems may be worse than Dolcefino is reporting. For instance, the map above shows only one polling place in Kingwood that ran out of ballot paper. But I personally know of at least two.
And Dolcefino has not yet even reported on the problems with handicapped voting. Reliable sources tell me of technology problems countywide associated with curbside voting for handicapped people. Again, I personally witnessed those at multiple locations.
Elections Administrator Hired Despite Reported Problems on Last Job
According to Dolcefino’s video, Clifford Tatum, the Elections Administrator, reportedly ran into problems with a similar job he held in Washington D.C.
Previously, the people who ran Harris County elections were elected themselves. Hidalgo changed that, however. She created an office of Elections Administration with an appointed head. Tatum is Hidalgo’s second head of that office. The first resigned after problems with an earlier election.
Many races on last November’s ballot were decided by just a few hundred votes. Without actual records, it’s impossible to tell whether ballot issues skewed election results.
We need to get to the bottom of these problems sooner rather than later. If Hidalgo has nothing to hide, why hide it?
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/10/2023
2019 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
NWS Says La Niña Has Ended, Likely Impact on Weather
On March 9, 2023, the Climate Prediction Center of the National Weather Service (NWS) announced that La Niña conditions which persisted for 3-years have finally ended. But we are not shifting directly into El Niño. Instead, we’re entering a transitional phase. NWS expects neutral conditions to continue through the Northern Hemisphere into spring and early summer of 2023.
La Niña and El Niño represent opposite phases of what meteorologists call ENSO, the El Niño Southern Oscillation in the Pacific Ocean. They govern recurring climate patterns across the tropical Pacific and have a cascade of global side effects, says NWS.
The patterns shift back and forth irregularly every two to seven years. This past La Niña phase lasted three years, an unusually long time.
NWS predicts that ENSO-neutral conditions will continue through the spring. The weather service also predicts El Niño conditions to form during summer 2023 and persist through the fall.
Impacts on Weather
The oscillation brings predictable shifts in ocean surface and atmospheric temperatures. These shifts disrupt the wind and rainfall patterns across the tropics.
El Niño brings cooler, wetter conditions to the southern U.S. in winter months. It also brings stronger steering currents that can disrupt low-pressure systems coming off the coast of Africa that turn into hurricanes.
La Niña, on the other hand, usually means less disruption, more Atlantic storms, and deeper droughts in the southern U.S. But we’re finally putting the most recent La Niña behind us.
ENSO Influence on Atlantic and Pacific Hurricane Seasons
The continental United States and Caribbean Islands have a substantially decreased chance of experiencing a hurricane during El Niño and an increased chance of experiencing a hurricane during La Niña. These maps (by NOAA Climate.gov, based on originals by Gerry Bell) explain why.
Overall, El Niño contributes to more eastern and central Pacific hurricanes and fewer Atlantic hurricanes. Conversely, La Niña contributes to fewer eastern and central Pacific hurricanes and more Atlantic hurricanes – exactly the opposite.
Other Influences on Hurricane Formation: AMO
NOAA also says that other oscillations, such as the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation (AMO) also influence hurricane formation. The warm phase of the AMO is associated with warmer sea surface temperatures and high hurricane activity in the main development region of the Atlantic between Western Africa and the Caribbean.
“The hurricane activity in any given season often reflects a combination of the multi-decadal signals and ENSO,” says NOAA.
For More Information
For a fuller discussion of how El Niño and La Niña influence other aspects of weather worldwide, check out NOAA’s Climate.gov, especially the FAQ page.
Also, the Associated Press ran an interesting story this morning by Seth Borenstein. The headline: “La Nina, which worsens hurricanes and drought, is gone.”
Borenstein says NOAA gives El Niño a 60% chance of returning this fall. But there’s also a 5% chance that La Niña will return for an unprecedented fourth winter.
We should have more certainty in a few months.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/9/23
2018 Days since Hurricane Harvey
Other Areas Disclose Road-Bond Spending Details, But Not Harris County
While major cities and counties throughout Texas post maps and detailed descriptions of their road-bond spending and projects, Harris County does not.
In June 2022, County Commissioner Adrian Garcia pitched bonds for roads, parks and public safety totaling $1.2 billion. It included $900 million for roads, $200 million for parks and $100 million for public-safety infrastructure.
Commissioners Tom Ramsey and Jack Cagle tried to slow the bond offering down until projects could be identified, prioritized, and estimated. However, Garcia, with the help of Commissioner Rodney Ellis and County Judge Lina Hidalgo, put the bond on the November ballot and it passed with little disclosure.
A series of poorly advertised and attended public meetings provided no details as to how the money would be spent except for some high-level breakdowns between roads and parks. Neither did the bond website – despite promises made in Commissioners Court that it would.
Rahman Presentation to ACEC Now Public
Dr. Milton Rahman, P.E., PMP, CFM, ENV SP., Executive Director and County Engineer did provide a project update earlier this month about the bond to the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) Houston. However, it provided only a little more detail than we already knew about how the money would be allocated. And it provided no location-specific data about where the money would be spent, i.e., which stretches of roads.
Below are several key slides from Dr. Rahman’s full presentation.
To qualify for any funding, roads must have a Pavement Condition Index below 40 (very poor to failing). But in scoring, roads will also be ranked by their surrounding population and the number of socially vulnerable residents. (See below).
Rahman did assign weights to partnership dollars, but he fails to define the factors. For instance, what does he mean by “project area” below? It gets a whopping 25% of the weight.
In short, he still won’t say where the money will go.
11X More for Admin than in Flood Bond 5X Larger
But Dr. Rahman does plan to take $110 million for management and administration. Compare that to the $10 million allocated for admin in 2018 flood bond that totaled $5 billion with partner funding. Dr. Rahman will take 11 times more for a bond one-fifth the size. It’s even more than the $100 million being invested in public-safety facilities which were so sorely in need of help before the election!
Even now, five months later, with the little information we have, I would find it impossible to make an informed decision based on this vague, high-level, process-oriented information presented by Dr. Rahman. But I do have deep suspicions that the $110 million could go to pay raises for political hires.
Rahman Withholding Pavement Condition Information
Even though Harris County has calculated a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) for every road in the county, it has not published the information. Nor did the Engineering Department supply the PCI report to ReduceFlooding.com in response to a direct request.
And even through Dr. Rahmen has already allocated the money, nowhere in his report does he address the number of lane miles needing repair in each precinct.
Other Oddities
For the record, Precinct 3 will receive the least money by far. It has almost half the county’s lane miles to maintain (47%) but will receive less than one-fifth of the bond money allocated to roads and drainage.
Moreover, large portions of Precincts 1 and 2 fall within the City of Houston and other municipalities such as Pasadena and Baytown. Thus they share responsibility and costs.
Finally, before redistricting, Commissioner Garcia made sure that most of the bad roads in his Precinct 2 magically wound up in Precinct 3.
With all the other factors folded in, there’s no guarantee most of Precinct 3’s roads will ever see 2022 road bond money.
Other Areas Far More Transparent
Because of the complexity of allocating bond dollars, virtually all major cities and counties in Texas simply publish maps that show where bond money will go.
But not in Harris County! That would be too simple. And why be transparent when you can keep people in the dark and avoid complaints about fairness?
To see how transparently other areas treat their voters, consult the links below.
When governments go out of their way to conceal information as certain commissioners have here, it raises the question “Why?”
It’s time you started demanding answers to that question. Your safety is at stake.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 3/8/23
2017 Days since Hurricane Harvey
The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.