Klein ISD faces lawsuit over bond election

The Klein ISD bond election is being challenged in court, and the Chron's Kim Jackson has details:

Klein school district resident Fred Blanton has filed a lawsuit contesting the results of the school district’s May 10 school bond election because of several incidents that occurred at various voting locations on Election Day.

He said the incidents violated the Texas Election Code.

In his suit, filed in state district court June 19, Blanton said those “mistakes and possible fraud” could have affected the outcome of the election. The election results should be declared void, Blanton said, and a new bond election called Nov. 4.

Blanton’s lawsuit focuses on an incident at the Brill Elementary School polling site. He said the election judge, assistant judge and election clerk assigned to that location, Precinct 109, left the polling location at 7:45 p.m. on May 10 without one of the “Judge’s Boot Controllers,” a device that records votes cast on the eSlate voting machines used in the election. After realizing that the controller was missing after arriving at the district’s central tallying location, the lawsuit states, one of the election judges returned to Brill Elementary with a police escort to retrieve the device.

By that point, Blanton said, the device had been left unattended and unsecured for “several hours.” The final vote count at the Brill location was 622 for the bond referendum and 248 against. He said no other voting location demonstrated such a large margin of victory.

The violations Blanton’s lawsuit alleges at the remaining 13 voting locations related to gaps and mistakes in the records that are required to be kept by those assigned to oversee each site.

Klein voters approved the $646.9 million bond referendum in a close election, with 4,732 voting for the measure and 4,420 against, according to information posted on the Klein ISD Web site.

Fred Blanton's lawsuit addresses problems at voting locations that included numbers of votes not matching signatures, and chain of custody issues. Klein ISD's response was:

“In response to the extent that the matters he describes are true, nothing individually or collectively rises as the basis for overturning the election,” Feldman said.

Regardless of how the lawsuit turns out, all has not been smoothed over in the district. Voters outside of Klein High are not happy with the district's leadership and direction, something officials might want to keep in mind when board members come up for reelection.

Posted by Anne Linehan @ 07/13/08 05:08 PM | Houston Miscellany | Technorati | Sphere | Comments (2)

Previous Entry | Home | Next Entry

Trackback

Unfortunately, abusive spammers have forced us to disable incoming trackback pings. The Technorati link should list related posts. Feel free to drop us an email if you've linked a post and would like to let us know about it.

SITE MENU

+Home
+About
+Archives/Categories
+Bad Sports
+Bloggers
+Chron Headlines
+Contact Us
+Donate
+Forum
+Local Blog Talk
+PDA Friendly
+Sponsor
+Syndication

ADVERTISING