Verifying hand-counted ballots in Texas elections may be easier under GOP bill

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A year after Gillespie County Republicans hand counted thousands of primary ballots, a bill from a Republican Texas lawmaker whose district includes parts of the area could make it easier to verify the accuracy of hand-counted election results.

State Rep. Ellen Troxclair of Lakeway filed House Bill 3113, which would require counties opting for hand counts to use a ballot that is capable of being scanned and tabulated by voting machines using optical scanning technology.

By law, Gillespie County Republicans were allowed to design their own ballots, and they didn’t choose to use ballots that could be scanned. That meant their primary results could only be verified manually.

If passed, the bill would allow for a faster recount or audit of any hand-counted results. Hand counts can take days and involve hundreds of people. Studies have shown the method is time-consuming, costly and less accurate than using machines.

“It will improve accuracy so that we can have greater confidence in the outcome,” Troxclair said.

The bill does not prevent a hand count or require an audit, she said, but simply makes a faster recount of hand-counted ballots an option.

Last year, Republicans in Gillespie County, home to Fredericksburg, west of Austin, hand-counted every ballot cast in their primary. There were about 8,000 ballots, each of which contained choices for more than 30 races, including Troxclair’s. Days later, during the canvass, Votebeat reported that election officials found errors in the results of all but one of the county’s 13 precincts.

Troxclair said Votebeat’s reporting on Gillespie’s hand count helped her understand where the process “could improve to ensure accuracy,” leading her to propose legislation. The bill was discussed during a House Elections Committee hearing Wednesday and is awaiting a committee vote.

Texas requires partial recounts only for ballots that are tabulated electronically. There is no provision in state law to require a recount or audit for the results of a hand count. The Texas secretary of state’s election division does not have the authority to audit the election unless Gillespie is one of the counties the office randomly selects.

Public records showed the effort in Gillespie was costly for taxpayers. It required 350 people, who worked more than 2,300 hours on Election Day at $12 per hour, totaling more than $27,000 in wages. The amount did not include hourly wages for election clerks at each of the county’s 13 precincts on Election Day who checked in voters and performed duties other than counting.

Jim Riley, the Gillespie County elections administrator, testified in favor of the bill Wednesday.

Riley told lawmakers that there’s no way to know exactly how many errors and inaccuracies were made in the primary because the ballots could not be scanned and recounted.

“Unreadable penmanship, simple math errors, transposing numerals, all of those things made a difference in whether or not we were accurate,” Riley told lawmakers.

Those opposing the bill, including members of the Fredericksburg Tea Party who led the hand count in Gillespie, said it would create additional costs for counties who choose to hand-count because voting equipment vendors would have to be paid to program the machines to handle the ballots.

“Why should counties who choose to hand-count like us, or who are considering returning to hand count, be forced to contract with the very machine companies they're trying to separate from?” said Jeannette Hormuth, a Fredericksburg Tea Party member who helped organize last year’s hand count.

Christina Adkins, elections division director at the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, said that under federal and state law, counties must provide at least one accessible voting machine for voters with disabilities at each polling location, whether counties hand-count or not. That means counties already are required to have the capabilities to format ballots so they can be scanned.

Riley said the bill would not create additional burdens on the county. In fact, last year, his office offered to format the primary ballots so they could be scanned. The decision was up to the county GOP.

“We said they could hand-count the complete election at their leisure after it was over, but that was turned down,” he said.

Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. She is based in Corpus Christi. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@votebeat.org.

Disclosure: Texas Secretary of State has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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