Urbandale Serf
Poss Endorses T-Reese
                             

07/29/02 Which is worse -- Hookers ruling the streets or Crooks stealing elections?

  Saturday night, they let me see another side of our city.

Early on, they shooed away two hookers (both African American) from Walnut Hill.  Didn't see those hookers again that night so they likely moved to another hot strip.

Then, we went to a domestic squabble in a rundown apartment complex off Lemmon.  Got that somewhat resolved.  Then, on to another apartment complex off Webb Chapel Ext. where a drunk resident had been terrorizing other tenants.  Then, some building tours to check out suspicious car reports.  Then, to a nightclub on Maple about an aggravated assault, except the victim was not there.  They found him at Parkland's Emergency with a 4 inch gash in his forehead inflicted by a gang of 15 Hispanics.  

Then another jog up to Walnut Hill to see if the hookers were under control or running amok.  This time the hookers the officers went after were trying to make "dates" with while driving a Lexis.

When I got home around 4:30 a.m., I was too wired to sleep.  So, I went on-line to the Elections Department's web site for statistics in Mike Martinez' plurality in the DISD District 8 race (NW Dallas to Oak Lawn to East Dallas).  Mike Martinez got 43.5% of the vote even though he is an unknown with incredible education credentials.  His  opponents were a vote harvester and a former city council candidate.  It would have been quite a fete for him to have come in 2nd, but he came in 1st, just not enough to get 50%.

When the precincts were identified by their polling places, it was stunning how few people voted, even in precincts where some of us put in hours and hours, walking and calling.  District 8 has 33,289 registered voters, and only 1,194 went to the polls by hook or crook -- 3.59%.  

As much as anything, poor voter turnout is caused by two weeks of early voting.  When we only voted on one day or requested an absentee ballot, people voted.  It was an event.  Now, people forget to vote.  That don't like the outcome of the election or decisions made by other people's choices, but they don't vote.

Citizen D:  Good article.  Couldn't agree more about early voting's dampening effect on voter turnout.  Seems we vote every week of the year.  Also, like your animated cartoons.  Livens up the long articles.

Voter apathy makes an easy playing field for vote harvesters.  They have a list of old folks who they coerced or conned in the last election, and keep going right back to them for a block of 200 or more votes every time.  When you have an election almost every month, vote harvesters like Joe May keep going back to the well, every two to three weeks.  

If we don't get something done about vote harvesting, polling places may become not relevant.  One District 8 polling place had 3 precincts with over 1,050 registered voters, but only 30 votes were cast out of all 3 precincts.  Probably 3 people were there working the election for 30 votes.  The 2 precincts voting at the Oak Lawn Library had over 3,700 registered voters, but only 162 people voted.
Low voter turnout, combined with Joe Vote Harvester May's specially collected ballots, really makes it amazing that a newcomer like Mike Martinez did so well against May and Pete Vaca.

The outcome in the Duncan/T-Reese re-race for Council District 4 was only surprising in the margin of Brain Dead's victory -- 205 votes.  She has a crooked vote-harvesting machine in place.  She is funded by Don Hicks and his racist gang.  She is the incumbent.  Larry Duncan was just not ready to go for this campaign.  His supporters worked so hard for his legal victory throwing out those May, 2001 fraudulent mail-in ballots.  They just did not seem to have the fire needed to knock out another hard 5 weeks to get him elected.

We are stuck with Brain Dead Thornton-Reese until next May, at least.  The only thing good to say about that election -- thank God, you don't live in Pleasant Grove.  Where was Jesse Diaz and the Hispanic voters in that campaign?  For someone who is as media savvy as Jesse, he was not to be found for 5 weeks.  That's a shame.  The District 4 re-race would have been a great opportunity for his coalition to prove they are a force to be reckoned with in Pleasant Grove, but their silence was deafening.

Harvesting mail-in vote ballots should be illegal.  It is wrong.  It is immoral.  It is a deterrent to voter participation.  A May campaign worker told me "it is SO-O-O legal" [vote harvesting].  Yes, and so are sexually oriented businesses.  Legality does not make either nasty business honorable.  Vote harvesting has the same negative impact on voter turnout and participation and honest elections as sex clubs have on other businesses located near them.  

Even if a moron like Judge Bully Buchmeyer can justify forcing a city to accept sex clubs, it does not mean those clubs don't have a detrimental impact on the entire community.  Even if someone like Brain Dead Thornton-Reese or Joe Thug May claim harvesting mail-in ballots is "assisting senior voters", it does not negate the impact such doings have on voter participation in the election process to determine who will run our government and taxing agencies.

Knowing you are going up against dead people voting or fake applications and ballots is enough to turn many good people away from running for public office.  Do we want to go the way of European politics where "nice" people don't associate with politicians?  

Some good guys won Saturday night without cheating.  Ken Zornes, Rafael Anchia, Jack Lowe.  Ken and Rafael have already exhibited their abilities as DISD Trustees, and Jack Lowe will be great.  DallasArena.com would have endorsed Betty Culbreath against Hollis Brashear because she is very qualified to serve as a Trustee with all her experience serving on city boards and commissions, but she works for Dallas County.  DallasArena.com will never endorse any government employee running for an elected position in a jurisdiction covered by their employer.

Vote harvesting was a factor in the District 9 race between Ron Price and newcomer Brent Brown.  With Price's spending habits, he should have been turned out of office.  Hopefully, Brent Brown will be ready to run the next time -- better still, maybe he will run against John Loza in the District 2 City Council race in May.

If you are disappointed in the results in any school board race or the Duncan/T-Reese re-match, call up the Mike Martinez campaign and use that anger to help him overcome Joe May's vote-harvesting gang of thugs.  Otherwise, you will be letting the crooks rule our local government. 

As a property owner in the Walnut Hill area, I am not going to concede Walnut Hill to the hookers on weekend nights or any other time.  They can get their overused rears back where they came from -- Corpus Christi or Houston or wherever.  The hookers rousted by my police hosts were from Corpus and Houston.  The officers say they are on a circuit.  I want to short that circuit and get Dallas off its loop.  May not ever get it done completely, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying.

As a Dallas taxpayer who has been hit by city council mistakes, DISD waste and County blunders, I will not throw up my hands and just stop voting because the bad guys play dirty and steal an election or two.  We just have to work harder.  No one said life is easy or there is immediate reward for doing the right thing.

Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she was going backwards in high heels.

You have choices.  Even if the bad guys have the advantages, stand up and fight.  Or,  just watch while your taxes get wasted on DISD projects that are political and not about education.  We have a chance to elect an educator who works in private industry to the School Board, or we can let a vote harvester (who works for a federal agency) use his "expertise" to waste our resources.  Even if you can't vote in District 8, you can volunteer and help us.  

It's time to get the hookers off our streets, and the crooks out of our election process.