Travis Co. County Clerk & Williamson Co. Elections Administrator

Travis Co. County Clerk & Williamson Co. Elections Administrator

Thursday, 07 February 2008

Dana DeBeauvoir, county clerk, Travis County

Dana DeBeauvoir's office looks more like a living room with a couch, coffee table and a colorful quilt, which she made out of her late grandmother's clothes. she also has completed 126 skydiving jumps and jokes it has trained her for politics. "You're scared mindless and you have to just do it, but it would be nice to do it with some grace," she said.

Q. What is the role of a county clerk?

A. County clerk is one of five original positions named in the Texas Constitution, created in 1836. It was judge, sheriff, treasurer, county clerk and county commissioner. The county clerk’s position was created so that when the government couldn’t figure out who should do something, the county clerk could be the catch-all. It’s an independent watchdog position created so county commissioners are not keeping their own records. Some would be surprised to know that the county clerk’s office is also where you file your cattle brand, so that’s kind of neat.

Q. What are your top responsibilities?

A. I would say redaction [of personal information] and elections. Personal information has long been filed with the county clerk. If you filed it with the county clerk, you knew it would always be there. The county clerk’s office served as a way of providing a safe place for people who couldn’t afford safety deposit boxes. But we’ve been through a shift in public opinion with personal identity information recently. We used to routinely have Social Security Numbers, address, ownership … everything publicly available. Now we are redacting all of the personal identity information like Social Security Numbers, driver’s license numbers, dates of birth, addresses, bank accounts, deed information, a lot of court information, probates.

And then there are elections. I guess the thing I’d share with you is that I absolutely love elections. I’ve been to several other cities to help them with their first elections. In 1994, I went to South Africa to help with the election at the end of apartheid. I’ve also helped with elections in Bosnia, Bangladesh and Kosovo. To help people do an election for the very first time, you get a lump in your throat to be part of that kind of moment.

Q. What do you feel is the most important aspect of the elections process?

A. Right now, it’s voting system security. Today there is a range of voters – well informed, young, old, and there are literacy issues. When you walk into a polling place you’re going to see everything. It is important that we have a quick, efficient and accurate voting process. This helps promote voter confidence when they have a good experience. To have a voter walk out of a polling place happy takes a lot of effort. You’ve got these folks who want to vote and that’s good, but you don’t want them to have a negative experience or they might not do it again. We’ve had to get out and tell people why they can feel confident in the voting system. It takes a certain kind of person to handle the questions people ask about voting and elections. You can’t get defensive. When something is in question, my approach is total transparency.

• Educaton: Bachelor's degree in sociology and social work, University of Texas at Arlington; Master's degree, LBJ School of Public Affairs
• Family: Married
• Contact: 854-9188, www.co.travis.tx.us

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Rick Barron, elections administrator, Williamson County

Rick Barron grew up in Oregon. His father Richard still lives in his home state and was a judge for 27 years. Rick moved to Texas in July 1999 and worked in the Travis County elections office. He has worked for Williamson County for a year,

Q. What enticed you to the elections administrator position?

A. I think originally the job description sounded interesting and it was a public service position. My dad has always worked in government. He’s been a judge in Oregon since 1980. I don’t know. I think the public service bug was in me, and I wasn’t finding anything fulfilling in the private sector.

Q. Does electronic voting simplify the elections process or complicate it more?

A. I would love to go all electronic, so I don’t have to deal with paper anymore, but I don’t know if our county has the political stomach for it right now. You know, there is a lot of misinformation out there about electronic voting systems, and it seems like a vocal minority really controls what the media reports. Usually, what happens is, when it comes down to it, when there is a problem with the electronic voting systems, what it comes down to is human error. It’s just the punch cards. They’re basically paper ballots. You know, you can have mistakes with any of those systems. It comes down to the quality of the poll workers who are recruited, how well the county executes the election, the training of the poll workers.

Q. What is the most common question you get from voters?
A. ‘Why did my polling place change?’ Sometimes what happens is for a May election the turnout is really low. So we might consolidate precincts. You know, combine them so that we have one polling place for six precincts. The reason we do that is to lower the cost, and it’s harder for those elections to find people to work. So it may be that we have 35 polling places for a May election, but we have 85 for the rest of them. People often times want to know why it changes and why it’s not consistent.

Q. What do you do in your spare time?
A. Right now I’m reading “Mornings on Horseback” about Teddy Roosevelt. I think he’s the most studly president we’ve ever had. I also wrote a science fiction novel called “Chasing Orion.” I got an idea from a true story about a guy in New Mexico who was looking at the moon and saw an asteroid slam into it. The rest of it is fictional. It’s funny because I really only read non-fiction. Anyway, I wrote the book over a six-month period in ’92 and ’93, but it sat for 10 years before I redid some of it and submitted it to about 50 publishers, and a small publisher in Maryland picked it up.

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in political science, University of Oregon; Master’s degree in classical civilization, McGregor School at Antioch University
• Family: Married
• Contact: 943-1630, rbarron@wilco.org