• Travis Co. Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir Saturday issued an alert to voters in certain precincts who may have received an incorrect postcard notice of polling locations for Saturday’s election. DeBeauvoir said the mistake was due to a a data error. All voters in the affected precincts are being sent a new card calling attention to the correct polling place. The cards should arrive in plenty of time for election day, DeBeauvoir said. “We’re telling all voters to double-check their polling place before they head to the polls,” she said. Voters with any questions should contact the County Clerk’s Elections Division at 854-4996 or 238-VOTE. These are the affected precincts, with their correct voting location:
113: Dessau Elementary, 1501 Dessau Ridge Lane
324: Lake Pointe Elementary, 11801 Sonoma
412: Joslin Elementary, 4500 Manchaca
414: Williams Elementary, 500 Mairo
437: Congress Ave. Baptist Church, 1511 S. Congress
449: Pleasant Hill Elementary, 6405 Circle South Rd.
466: Bedichek Middle School, 6800 Bill Hughes Rd. – Lee Nichols
• Early voting in Travis Co. took a sharp upturn in the last two days – after averaging around 2,000 voters a day for the first six days, a combined 10,984 went to the booths on Monday and Tuesday. Combined with mail-in ballots, a total of 24,573 residents have weighed in on the various elections around the county, 4.5% of registered voters. In addition to the high-profile Austin City Council, AISD, and ACC races, Travis County’s Elections Division is conducting races for 29 other jurisdictions. Highest turnout was at the Randalls in West Lake Hills (2,684), no doubt spurred by the heated mayoral race in Rollingwood (see p.34). Lowest was at the ACC Eastview campus (147). – L.N.
• After just nine months on the job – and only a week before Saturday’s municipal elections – the Williamson Co. elections chief has resigned. According to media reports, Cliff Borofsky gave no reason for stepping down – “nothing in particular,” he told the Statesman – but both that paper and In Fact Daily offered from his work history plenty of fodder for speculation, including voting machine snafus during this election (Wilco has not been able to use its ES&S electronic voting machines during early voting, although company officials promise they’ll be ready by Saturday) and a 30-hour vote-counting delay at his previous job as the Bexar Co. elections administrator. – L.N.
This article appears in May 12 • 2006.