# Voter fraud in Texas **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 26, 2016, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769 "2016-10-26T13:16:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/21 "2016-10-26T15:57:03Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > The above article makes a good point: By pressing Single party in step one, then by pressing on the candidate during step # 2, you deselect that vote. Now that you mention it, that was what they pointed out as the most likely source of an error on the news last night. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/22 "2016-10-26T16:22:18Z")
Our local community FB page is now plagued with Trumpsters shouting “fraud” and “rigging” along with claims that Trump votes are being changed to Clinton votes all over the country, including here. Thanks, Donald - you are to blame for this mass paranoia. On our machines, there is no option to vote straight party line. There were five or six presidential candidates, but only two candidates to a page: Trump and Clinton on the first page, then Johnson and Stein on the second page, then one or two I’d never heard of on the third page. If you made a selection on the first page (Trump or Clinton), you still have to page through the rest of the candidates. If you select another presidential candidate, it changes your vote. So I think some people are thinking that they’ve moved on to a new race, select a random name, and erase their Trump/Clinton vote. But you still get a paper ballot with your selections on it, and if they’re wrong, you can get a do-over. Arguments that elections here in TN are run by Republicans, the machines are not connected to the internet and cannot be hacked, etc, fall on deaf ears. If Trump doesn’t win here (which he will), I can see people taking to the streets in protest of non-existent vote rigging. I think I’m going to pour all my investment money into tinfoil hats. ---
**Author:** ![Drum\_God](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drum_god/32/44_2.png) [@Drum\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drum_God)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/23 "2016-10-26T16:22:47Z")
So why are otherwise intelligent, reasonable people so eager to accept this is rigging even though rigging is the least likely explanation for the voting errors reported? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/24 "2016-10-26T16:24:20Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I’ve also seen claims of voting machines doing the opposite (changing Clinton votes to Trump). > > I really don’t like electronic voting machines. I’d really like to see this system: 1. Record your choices on a touch screen. 2. When you’re done, hit ‘Print’ and it produces a printed paper ballot with your choices recorded. 3. After you’ve verified the accuracy of your paper ballot, you put it through the scanner that records your votes. That’s the point at which you’ve actually voted. (If your paper ballot was inaccurate, or if you simply changed your mind before you fed it into the scanner, you could give your paper ballot to an election official who would feed it into a shredder and send you back to the touch screen.) This would have the following advantages: - Your vote would be electronically recorded (by the scanner). - There would be a paper trail of everyone’s paper ballots. - The touch screens would make voting easier, just like they do now where they’re used, but hacking them would be pointless. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/25 "2016-10-26T16:24:42Z")
> [@Drum\_God](#): > > So why are otherwise intelligent, reasonable people so eager to accept this is rigging even though rigging is the least likely explanation for the voting errors reported? Because they are neither intelligent nor reasonable. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/26 "2016-10-26T16:25:00Z")
Electronic voting machines are fucking horrific. Not because they’re rigged, but because they can’t be demonstrated to not be rigged to the median voter. For paper ballots you can show the pile of paper ballots, and they can be pulled out and you can see how they’re marked with your naked eyes. There’s an audit trail, if you don’t believe the tallies you can pull out the paper ballots and run them through a new scantron system you trust, or have teams of humans look them over. Electronic voting should be outlawed. ---
**Author:** ![Drum\_God](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drum_god/32/44_2.png) [@Drum\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drum_God)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/27 "2016-10-26T16:25:12Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > On our machines, there is no option to vote straight party line. There were five or six presidential candidates, but only two candidates to a page: Trump and Clinton on the first page, then Johnson and Stein on the second page, then one or two I’d never heard of on the third page. If you made a selection on the first page (Trump or Clinton), you still have to page through the rest of the candidates. If you select another presidential candidate, it changes your vote. So I think some people are thinking that they’ve moved on to a new race, select a random name, and erase their Trump/Clinton vote. Honestly, that sounds like a profoundly stupid way to format the screens. If Trump and Clinton are on the same page, I can’t see how that format favors either one of them. However, I can certainly imagine how a voter could be confused. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/28 "2016-10-26T16:27:12Z")
> [@Drum\_God](#): > > So why are otherwise intelligent, reasonable people so eager to accept this is rigging even though rigging is the least likely explanation for the voting errors reported? Same reason people accuse sports officials of being bribed when officiating was more likely an honest mistake. People like to attribute to malice what can be attribute to a mistake. Because something deep down screams fraud. Human nature. It takes almost superhuman patience and understanding to see votes being taken away from your candidate and given to the opponent, and \*not \*think or say, “Fraud.” ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/29 "2016-10-26T16:28:44Z")
That being said, given all of Trump’s talk about a rigged election, the officials should have taken care to prevent this sort of machine glitch from happening. Not because they’re rigging the election - they aren’t - but because it _feeds into the perception_, which is already a raging fire. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/30 "2016-10-26T16:33:06Z")
> [@Drum\_God](#): > > Honestly, that sounds like a profoundly stupid way to format the screens. If Trump and Clinton are on the same page, I can’t see how that format favors either one of them. However, I can certainly imagine how a voter could be confused. Things like this and the “butterfly ballot” that likely cost Gore his election just drive me crazy. Why are these things always done by people who have no effing idea how to present information, and stop with “there, all the candidates are listed; next!” ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/31 "2016-10-26T17:02:09Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > That being said, given all of Trump’s talk about a rigged election, the officials should have taken care to prevent this sort of machine glitch from happening. Not because they’re rigging the election - they aren’t - but because it _feeds into the perception_, which is already a raging fire. The County Clerk in Tarrant County (Arlington) is Republican. (As is the Clerk in my county, Harris.) Tried to look up Amarillo but I got bored. County Clerks oversee voting in Texas. Are they in on “rigging” the election? ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/32 "2016-10-26T17:07:31Z")
There was a person on FB named Shandy Clarke who claimed that her mama told her that her aunt said when she went to vote for Trump it “switched back” to Clinton. Within hours I saw it linked repeatedly on FB. Then she provided “proof” that it was happening by linking RightwingNews’ article about how there were reports of voter fraud. But she shouldn’t have been so open about where it was because it was too easy to debunk. Someone was lying. I don’t know if it was Shandy or her mama or her aunt, but what she claimed would have been impossible, and besides who would go so far to commit voter fraud and make it “switch back” while you’re standing there able to report it? Anyway it was quickly debunked but even this afternoon there are still viral posts about this incident and it’s already taken as irrefutable truth; try to link to the Snopes debunking and they will just say Snopes is Leftist. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/33 "2016-10-26T17:40:37Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > The County Clerk in Tarrant County (Arlington) is Republican. (As is the Clerk in my county, Harris.) Tried to look up Amarillo but I got bored. > > County Clerks oversee voting in Texas. Are they in on “rigging” the election? Julie Smith (Potter County Clerk - Amarillo) is also a Republican. I find it hard to believe that Republican county clerks would be in on rigging the vote for Democratic candidates, especially somewhere as inconsequential as Amarillo/Potter County, which is about 1/10th the size of Tarrant County. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/34 "2016-10-26T17:53:29Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > I’d really like to see this system: > > 1. Record your choices on a touch screen. > 2. When you’re done, hit ‘Print’ and it produces a printed paper ballot with your choices recorded. > 3. After you’ve verified the accuracy of your paper ballot, you put it through the scanner that records your votes. That’s the point at which you’ve actually voted. > (If your paper ballot was inaccurate, or if you simply changed your mind before you fed it into the scanner, you could give your paper ballot to an election official who would feed it into a shredder and send you back to the touch screen.) > > This would have the following advantages: > > - Your vote would be electronically recorded (by the scanner). > - There would be a paper trail of everyone’s paper ballots. > - The touch screens would make voting easier, just like they do now where they’re used, but hacking them would be pointless. This description is very close to how the machines we use in Clark County, Nevada work. When I vote, I select boxes on a touchscreen. After all parts of the ballot are done, I review my choices and confirm them. I then have the option of having the machine print my choices (I always print them). Then I review the printed copy and submit my vote. As **Vicsage** says, at some point you have to trust that the people in charge are doing their job and doing so impartially, no matter what system is used. Although I’d like to see a return to paper ballots, so far I’ve been okay with the transparency that the system used where I live provides. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/35 "2016-10-26T17:55:43Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > The County Clerk in Tarrant County (Arlington) is Republican. (As is the Clerk in my county, Harris.) Tried to look up Amarillo but I got bored. > > County Clerks oversee voting in Texas. Are they in on “rigging” the election? Trump supporters think the whole world is out to get them. Believe me – I read their postings on other message boards. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/36 "2016-10-26T18:07:27Z")
> [@BorgHunter](#): > > Wasn’t there a similar kerfuffle back in '08, when voting machines somewhere were allegedly changing Obama votes to McCain? I believe that one was caused by poorly calibrated touchscreens. I suspect this is a similar issue. “Must…tell…President…McCain!” ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/37 "2016-10-26T18:27:47Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Scantron-type ballots with box precounting solves all problems and prevents others. We just started using these after 8 years of wailing and gnashing of teeth over the specs and the contract. And the Big Deal now is that people arecomplaining that the machine demands that you mark in the correct space indicated, generating undervotes. So of course that means the machines must be rigged (To exclude who? People with the shakes?) I say to that: bet these people don’t ever mark their @&$^%# Lottery ticket blanks wrong, and that’s one tenth the size of the ballot blank. We went for optiscanners because anything that did not involve a naked-eye visible, tangible, voter-hand-marked MANUALLY RECOUNTABLE piece of paper would have provoked freekin’ riots. And we needed to move on from hand-tallying becase our ward volunteer poll workers are getting old and the parties are finding it it nearly impossible to recruit new ones who can keep a spreadsheet straight AND are willing to be up at 5am on Election Day and stay put until the bitter end. If it were fiscally affordable I’d sure go for the proposed idea of the electronic device for making choices, that THEN spits out the hardcopy ballot and if you agree that’s what you wanted, you drop it into the box through the scanner. The idea being to take out the error point of the pencil in the voter’s trembling hand. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/38 "2016-10-26T18:56:36Z")
Here in Topeka (Shawnee County), Kansas, we’ve gotten rid of the electronic-only machines and gone to a system with two choices: the voter can pick a paper fill-in-the-bubble ballot or use a touchscreen that at the end prints out their choices on paper. In either case, the paper is then fed into an optical scanner to tabulate the results, and the original paper is retained if a hand-count is necessary. This system seemed to work pretty well in the August primary; Nov. 8 will be its first test in a general election. ---
**Author:** ![Drum\_God](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drum_god/32/44_2.png) [@Drum\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drum_God)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/39 "2016-10-26T19:27:34Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Here in Topeka (Shawnee County), Kansas, we’ve gotten rid of the electronic-only machines and gone to a system with two choices: the voter can pick a paper fill-in-the-bubble ballot or use a touchscreen that at the end prints out their choices on paper. In either case, the paper is then fed into an optical scanner to tabulate the results, and the original paper is retained if a hand-count is necessary. > > This system seemed to work pretty well in the August primary; Nov. 8 will be its first test in a general election. That’s what we use in my county in Texas. The system is called “AutoMark”. The voter feeds the paper ballot into the machine and makes his/her choices. The machine then fills in the ovals next to the desired choices and spits the paper back out. The voter then deposits it in the ballot box. At the end of the day, the ballot box is taken to the central counting station where the ballots fed into an optical scanning machine and each race is counted. The voter can also mark the paper with a pencil (provided in the voting booth). The result is the same. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2016, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769/40 "2016-10-26T21:25:13Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Perhaps machine malfunctions–if the story can be verified. Mentions on “social media” are insufficient. > > I’m really glad Trump is so sure that Texas will go Blue that his people are already spreading stories of “rigging.” > **[Judge: No issues with local voting machines](https://www.amarillo.com/story/news/local/2016/10/25/potter-county-judge-nothing-wrong-voting-machines/13073681007/)** > > Potter County Judge Nancy Tanner issued a statement Tuesday denying social media claims that local voting machines are changing votes. > "There is nothing wrong with any of the machines we use for vo… Says the improper vote wasn’t even registered, they voided it and let the person vote on another machine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voter-fraud-in-texas/769769.md?page=3)