Opinion

Stumbling over 'Texas two-step' COMMENTARY

The melodrama with which Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman reported a list of suspected two-timing voters to the district attorney's office this week seemed more appropriate for irregularities associated with creative Enron accounting than voting.

There was a press conference and news release warning of up to 10 years in the pokey and a $10,000 fine for those convicted of the third-degree felony of knowingly voting twice. There were Kaufman's quotes to reporters about voters trying to double dip in both Democratic and Republican primaries "thinking they wouldn't get caught."

"I could have just turned all that over quietly," Kaufman says. But she chose to teach voters a lesson.

"I certainly am not on a witchhunt and I don't want innocent people thrown in the slammer," Kaufman said. "But I felt like making a big issue of it was the best way to educate the public on the importance of voting only once in an election."

Trying to follow rules

While some voters are clearly in need of remedial voting instruction, Kaufman's approach seems more intent on scaring or embarrassing any guilty parties, rather than informing voters who were confused or mistaken.

Kaufman has no proof that any of the 1,148 voters on the list actually intended to break the law.

Take Zymoral Eikner. The 75-year-old northeast Houston resident came clean when I called to ask her if she'd voted once during early voting and again on Election Day.

"I suppose so," said Eikner.

"I heard this on the news and this is frightening to me," Eikner said. "It said it could be a federal offense. Or I could go to jail or something. And I'm just, well, I'm just not accustomed to anything like that. I've never done anything wrong."

Eikner, who divvies out meals at a Pleasantville senior center, said she and her neighbors were trying to follow what they thought were the rules in this election where so many things, including the candidates, seemed exceptional.

"They said 'you can vote twice, this is the Texas two-step.' And I'd never heard of Texas two-step. And I just thought that was something we were supposed to do," she said.

The phrase "voting twice" was used by campaigns and media to explain a two-pronged primary process by which Texans can cast one individual vote, and then return to participate in a Texas-style caucus.

Sybil Moji, a 45-year-old sales associate in southwest Houston, also fell victim to the "vote twice" refrain.

"We were just trying to exercise our rights as citizens and now we're getting in trouble because something wasn't explained," Moji said.

Her voter registration card had been stamped when she voted early in the Democratic primary, but she said that didn't raise any eyebrows from campaign workers when she returned to cast her second ballot.

Then there are folks who say they didn't vote twice at all. Their only sin seems to be mistakenly signing in at the wrong party's polling place before heading to the correct one.

Rick Shojaei, 50, of Huffman, said he was in the voting booth before realizing there weren't any Democrats on the ballot. He left thinking the GOP election judge would clear up the situation.

"If they didn't take my name completely off, it's their problem," he said.

Walter Muehr, 79, of South Houston, couldn't remember exactly what went on in the voting booth before he realized he was at the wrong primary.

"I didn't vote for anybody. I don't think I did. It's very possible I did. I just really don't know now," he said. "But I certainly wasn't trying to vote twice."

That's probably the case for most on Kaufman's list. Sure, these voters could have avoided trouble by educating themselves more before voting.

But election judges and poll workers who neglected to scratch out names or check for stamps on voting cards bear some of the responsibility. And I'm sure former President Bill Clinton and journalists like me share in the blame for having a bit too much fun with the "voting twice" jokes.

Now the DA's office is stuck with this haystack of names of mostly confused, lost or uninformed voters. Investigators will be hard-pressed to locate the few needles of the ill-intentioned.

And even if they are plucked from the pile, prosecution isn't likely.

In the 1992 presidential elections, at least 6,707 people in Harris County who voted without proper registration were never punished. Officials couldn't prove they intended to thwart the law.

A couple years later, then-district attorney John B. Holmes Jr. was asked if he could recall any illegal voting charges ever being filed in the county. He said no, but he added, "there's been a hell of a lot of investigations."

lisa.falkenberg@chron.com