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KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT
Emergency Session
Friday, September 3, 2004
8:45 a.m.
Commissioners' Courtroom
Kerr County Courthouse
Kerrville, Texas
PRESENT: PAT TINLEY, Kerr County Judge
H.A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1
WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2
JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3
DAVE NICHOLSON, Commissioner Pct. 4

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I N D E X
September 3, 2004
PAGE
1.1 Consider, discuss, and accept "Certification of
Unopposed Candidates" and issue an Order declaring
the General Election Cancelled and the unopposed
candidates elected 3
1.2 Consider and discuss ordering the General Election
as required by Section 3.004 and 3.005, Texas
Election Code --
--- Adjourned 12
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On Friday, September 3, 2004, at 8:45 a.m., an emergency
meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in the
Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse, Kerrville,
Texas, and the following proceedings were had in open court:
P R O C E E D I N G S
(Commissioner Letz not present.)
JUDGE TINLEY: Let me call to order the
special emergency Commissioners Court meeting posted for
this time and date, Friday, September 3, 2004, at 8:45 a.m.
There were a couple of matters that had a very, very short
fuse that were called to the attention of the Court
yesterday which required this meeting to be posted, relative
to upcoming election matters. And, at this point, Item 1 is
consider, discuss, and accept certification of unopposed
candidates, and issue an order declaring the general
election canceled and the unopposed candidates elected.
Ms. Pieper, can you enlighten us on that, please?
MS. PIEPER: Yes, sir. This is a new law
that came into effect last legislative session, and their
methods are correct, but their procedures are wrong. So,
this is just -- we're going to have to go back and get this
bill corrected, because the law requires that y'all order an
election. However, with the law, the Unopposed Candidates
section, the law is as long as I fill out this form and file
it, then that automatically cancels the election. Anyway,
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so it's kind of odd. I talked to the Secretary of the State
yesterday, and -- and said I'm going to go ahead and present
mine to the Commissioners; I feel it should be their
decision and not mine. If we do this -- if y'all do an
order declaring the election canceled and the unopposed
candidates elected, that is just for the local candidates
only. And their names will still go on the ballot, but
there just will not be an oval for the voter to mark in that
candidate.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Would there be --
would their names be in each precinct?
MS. PIEPER: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We're not talking
about grouping them on a separate page or anything like
that?
MS. PIEPER: At the bottom -- well, you start
out with a particular ballot order, with the president and
so forth down, and then the local candidates will be below
that. And -- and beside their name with their office, it
will have, "Unopposed candidate declared elected." So, the
name is still on the ballot; the voters will still see it.
JUDGE TINLEY: What fiscal or administrative
advantage do we gain by doing this?
MS. PIEPER: We will be able to save money by
doing this.
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JUDGE TINLEY: That's a fiscal advantage.
And what -- in what manner do we -- do we gain that?
MS. PIEPER: Well, because, rather than a
precinct name -- Commissioner Baldwin, instead of his name
going just on Precinct 1 ballots, he will go on every ballot
for every precinct, because I don't have to do what they
call formats, and make sure his just goes on Precinct 1
ballots. Therefore, when they are printing the ballots and
programming our chips for our machine, they don't have to go
in and key four different ones.
JUDGE TINLEY: So we save in programming
costs for how they format the machine that counts the
ballots and so forth?
MS. PIEPER: Plus the printing cost, because
they don't have to set up four different ballot styles on
that as well.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. You may want to move
back to Precinct 4.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No. I'm going to try
to get -- do you have any control? Can you get my name on
the Bandera ballot? (Laughter.)
MS. PIEPER: No, just Kerr County.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do you believe that
this will, perhaps, cause confusion for voters?
MS. PIEPER: No. Most of the voters, their
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comments --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: In my precinct, if
he's on the ballot, it's going to cause confusion.
MS. PIEPER: No, it's going to state what his
office is.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I understand.
MS. PIEPER: And then most of the voters,
when they do comment -- not all of them do, but when they do
comment, they will ask me, "Do I have to mark this?"
They're unopposed; they're going to win anyway.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: So, when I go to
vote in November, I'm going to get a ballot, and it's not
going to have the Sheriff on there as a candidate, or Rex
Emerson as a candidate?
MS. PIEPER: It will have them on there.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Or Bob Terrill?
MS. PIEPER: It will have them on there.
There just will not be an oval. There will be a clause
right before that that these have been declared -- those
that's unopposed candidates have been declared elected.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: What do you think of
that, Bob?
MR. TERRILL: It's certainly just all a new
concept to me, and I haven't -- I'm digesting. I prefer --
I would prefer -- if I were having a long career in the
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office or something like that, I'd kind of prefer to have
people actually see it and consider it. But I don't know
what the difference in cost is or how much that would
outweigh the savings, but having the name where it's --
someone actually has to look at it and consider that name on
the -- on the ballot.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: So, my choice -- if
we don't do that, my choice would be just to not vote for
you; to leave -- I could leave that blank, and you would get
fewer votes than some other candidates, so that there is
a -- there is a vote-counting implication to not having the
oval there to check. Same with the Sheriff or Commissioner
Baldwin.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah. It's -- in
talking to Jannett about it, as long as the names are on
there and they're unopposed, I agree. And if it has out
there what office and, "Unopposed, declared elected,"
wouldn't it save a lot on the tabulations? Even though
it's --
MS. PIEPER: It will.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: On reading that, 'cause
you don't have any of those local ones that you have to
actually, like they do every year, come in here and give the
count for. All you're going to have is your other ones, but
yet the local candidate's still on the ballot. So, it
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may -- besides the printing cost, and all the ballots can
look identical throughout the county. And then the --
MS. PIEPER: Right. And we use the three-ply
NCR paper, and so when we're printing out all of our
reports, our reports will be shorter.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're satisfied
this -- you're satisfied this satisfies the letter and
spirit of the law?
MS. PIEPER: Yes.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: W
write-in declarations? Is there a cutoff
MS. PIEPER: September the
(Commissioner Letz entered
MS. PIEPER: September 8th
will have to certify to me that there are
believe the 2nd is actually the deadline.
at my calendar.
gat is the law on
time?
8th, I believe.
the courtroom.)
is when the Judge
no write-in -- I
I'd have to look
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: But, beyond a
certain date, if someone decides to run against an unopposed
candidate, it's too late?
MS. PIEPER: Right, exactly. But, however,
should one file, then that would go on the ballot as such,
as long as they're filing in a timely manner.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What do you want, an
order?
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MS. PIEPER: Yes, an order declaring the
general election canceled and the unopposed candidates
elected.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Jannett, the general
election for local candidates?
MS. PIEPER: For local candidates, right.
Because the governor is the one that calls the election for
the state and federal, presidential.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't want there to
be any confusion that the national election is canceled.
MS. PIEPER: No. No. We will still have an
election here.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Commissioner, these
names will appear on the ballot as elected.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: You already knew
that, okay.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'd like to make a
motion, whatever the -- the verbiage that the Clerk has
chosen. Do you want to repeat it so we can plug it into my
motion?
MS. PIEPER: Issue an order declaring the
general election for Kerr County local candidates canceled,
and the unopposed candidates elected.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's my motion.
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll second it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded, as
stated. Any further questions or discussion? All in favor
of the motion, signify by raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Congratulations.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you very much.
Do I get any votes or not? (Laughter.)
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, you win zero to
zero.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: If September 8th is
the deadline, there may still be somebody.
MS. PIEPER: Okay. Judge, we can pull the
next item, then.
JUDGE TINLEY: The next agenda item is to
consider and discuss ordering the general election, as
required by Section 3.004 and 3.005 of the Texas Election
Code.
MS. PIEPER: So that item can be pulled,
because we're not going to order the election. We just
canceled it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. That was easy.
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JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have a question, which
you could probably answer. How much money does this save?
MS. PIEPER: I haven't completely figured it
up, but as we were speaking earlier, it's going to save on
what they call ballot styles, because your name will go on
every ballot, not just Precinct 3. It will also save money
on programming of the chips, and then it will save money on
our reports that we do. We have that three-ply NCR paper,
which is real expensive, and our reports won't be near as
long.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: So, what you're telling me is,
by virtue of our action on Number 1, you don't need Item
Number 2 considered?
MS. PIEPER: That is correct.
JUDGE TINLEY: All right.
MS. PIEPER: And, gentlemen, just for your
information, I am also contracting with Headwaters, so
they're going to pick up probably $2,500 or $3,000 of our
election expense, and that money will be placed in a
separate line item for election equipment.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Have they -- you don't
handle who -- isn't their filing deadline over?
MS. PIEPER: Yes, the filing deadline was
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over yesterday at 5 p.m.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Four candidates out
of Precinct 2.
JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else, gentlemen?
This meeting will stand adjourned.
(Commissioners Court adjourned at 8:59 a.m.)
STATE OF TEXAS I
COUNTY OF KERR I
The above and foregoing is a true and complete
transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as
County Clerk of the Commissioners Court of Kerr County,
Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth.
DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 3rd day of September,
2004.
Certified Shorthand Reporter
JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk
B Y : _ _ __ ~ r`~~i~i'Z ___
Kathy Ba ik, Deputy County Clerk
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ORDER NO. 28788
ELECTION CANCELLED
UNOPPOSED CANDIDATES ELECTED
Came to be heard this the 3`d day of September 2004 with a motion made by
Commissioner Baldwin, Seconded by Commissioner Williams, the Court unanimously
approved by a vote of 4-0-0 to accept the Certificate of Unopposed Candidates and
declare the election cancelled with each name printed as such on the ballot.