When I became the precinct chair and election judge in my precinct in 2002, I had the privilege of helping voters get used to the new eSlate machines that Harris County had acquired.

Well, I wonder what we’ll be using this election.

Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman this morning said she is confident of timely, clean elections in November, even as a fire that destroyed the county's entire inventory of 10,000 electronic voting machines still burned.

Kaufman urged voters to cast their ballots early to help the county cope with a possible shortage of equipment on election day.

"Because I don’t expect to have 10,000 pieces to work with, no matter what we do, I’m sure that we’re going to be putting on a full court press urging people to vote early," Kaufman said.

Kaufman said she expected that the fire in a county warehouse in the 600 block of Canino, in north Houston, has destroyed $30 million worth of equipment and caused another $10 million in damage to the building.

Kaufman hopes to cobble together a collection of voting machines through loans from other counties and replacement equipment from its vendor, she said. All five members of Commissioners Court contacted her this morning to pledge their support in helping her with the resources needed to stage a successful election in which early voting begins in just 52 days, she said.

While everybody is speculating about the hows and whys of the fire, I don’t really care about them. My one and only question is what I, my alternate judge, and my clerks are going to be expected to do in November, and what sort of equipment we will have in the precinct.