10.20.08
A few items from the first day of early voting
Busy first day of early voting in Williamson County News 8 is reporting, Wilco early voters experience long waits.
Williamson County voters showed up on the first day of early voting hoping to punch in their candidate preferences and get out quickly. But for most, that was not the case.
“[I waited] probably a good hour,” said Juanita Irwin.
“We walked in, saw the line and turned around and left,” said Tina Pearson.
Leonard and Tina Pearson ran into even more complications along the way.
“I went over to the Annex on the Interloop and had about an hour wait and somebody told me about this place and we took an hour to find it, but we found it,” said Leonard.
Voters said several signs were placed in confusing locations, leading them to wrong sites.
But once inside, most voters said the electronic voting process was pretty painless.
As residents of HD-52 began casting their votes for who would replace soon-to-be-former Rep. Mike Krusee he was in court today for his DWI charge from earlier in the year. ACRE Texas blog has the report and a link to the FOX 7 video of Krusee pleading not guilty, Krusee formally charged with DWI.
[Ed. note: the dreaded missing “not” struck when we originally posted. Krusee plead not guilty. We regret the error and thank the many who pointed it out.]
HD 52 Representative Mike Krusee was in a Williamson County courtroom today to be formally charged with driving while intoxicated, as reported by Austin’s FOX 7. He pled not guilty and will go to trial on November 17. Krusee is not running for reelection.
Interestingly, the charge was read to him by Dee Hobbs, Williamson County prosecuting attorney, who ran in the Republican primary for Krusee’s seat. Hobbs was defeated in a primary runoff by Bryan Daniel, who is the Republican nominee for the seat. Also running are Democrat Diana Maldonado and Libertarian Lillian Simmons.
Also at News 8 today Harvey Kronberg gave us his bottom line for the upcoming election, Texas stays red and the Democrats pick up two or three in the Legislature.
The bottom line? Texas is likely to remain a red state at the top of the ticket this year but the trend lines look very good for Democrats. Democratic leaders are very confident that down the ballot they can win the five Texas House seats necessary to regain the majority.
My view is that Republicans will hold them to a gain of two to three and one in the Senate. Add one more dynamic to the mix: last year, a Republican House member named Kirk England switched parties and became a Democrat. The GOP swore they would beat him in the next election. Instead, the new Democrat looks like he will win handily, opening the door for other Republicans to consider party switching.
But remember, things change quickly in politics and anything can happen between now and Election Day.
I think he’s off by two or three.