The County Executive Committee (CEC), made up of the county’s precinct chairs from either the Republican or Democratic Party, has an opportunity each Primary Election to make changes to how the election is conducted. Unlike other elections where the process is determined by county officials or the local entities running their elections, the county Party itself chooses whether or not to contract with the county elections office and if so, what that contract entails. Each Party must have a Primary Committee headed by the County Party Chair that draws up the election contract, or decides to conduct its own election, and then that contract or decision is ultimately approved by the CEC. The Party must stay within the bonds of Texas law, however.
*Disclaimer*
This document is just a guide. Advancing Integrity is not a legal firm and cannot give legal advice. Always refer to the Texas Election Code, Texas Secretary of State, and your County Elections Office.
Voting Methods
Hand-marked paper ballots are still used in many counties and others are considering returning to this method. These ballots can be pre-printed or printed through a print on demand system where upon check-in, the voter’s proper ballot style is identified and that personalized ballot is printed in the polling location. The ballots are then marked in ink that cannot be erased. These ballots can then be hand counted or counted by an optical scanner.
Ballot marking devices (BMDs) allow the voter to make their selections on an electronic device and then print a ballot that has a list of the candidates the voter selected. Like hand-marked ballots, these ballots can then be hand counted or counted by an optical scanner. President Trump’s Executive Order abolishes systems that read the selections from a QR Code instead of optically scanning the names. This has called the BMDs manufactured by ES&S into question and some counties have already transitioned to hand-marked ballots or other vendors.
Direct Recording Electronic systems (DREs) allow voters to make their choices electronically and cast their ballots on the same device. This method does not provide a voter verifiable paper trail and was not truly auditable. A true recount was impossible because there was nothing to recount. Fortunately legislation phased these systems out of use except in rare circumstances for the physically disabled.
It is important to note that regardless of the system chosen, at least one BMD or DRE that is specially equipped for disabled voters must be available at every polling location. The only exceptions are sparsely populated jurisdictions conducting non-federal elections.
Human Error
People don’t follow directions. Anyone who has been a part of a recount of hand-marked ballots or has served on an Early Voting Ballot Board knows this is true. Every election there are always hand-marked ballots that are not marked properly. Some will have circled names instead of filled-in bubbles. Others will have underlines or names written on the ballot. In these cases the voter’s intention may not be clear.
People make mistakes. With hand-marked ballots a mistake cannot be simply erased. Instead of asking for a new ballot the voter may improvise and try to scribble out a mistake or mark an “x” over it. Voters may be careless and make stray marks on their ballots that can cause them to be read incorrectly. Again, the voter’s intention may not be clear.
These mistakes may be caught instantly when the voter inserts the ballot into a scanner. Many are programmed to recognize an undervote or an overvote and spit the ballot back out for the voter to correct. Voters are given the opportunity to self-adjudicate their ballots. They know their intentions and can fix the mistakes.
When the ballots are hand-counted, though, the counting team must adjudicate the ballot. This puts a stranger in the position of figuring out the voter’s intention. Is one mark darker than the other? Should the “x” instead of a bubble be counted? Remember the “hanging chads” of 2000? Hand-marked ballots may not cause that much uproar, but the intention of the voter isn’t always clear.
Ballot-marking devices make the voter’s intent much more clear. A voter verifiable paper trail allows the voter to check the names printed from the device and ensure accuracy. These machines are not perfect and they do require the voter to verify them, but they do allow the voter to self-adjudicate the ballot. Whether they are scanned or hand-counted, the name is clearly printed.
Fraud
The largest threat to the security of hand marked ballots is when they are hand counted. Since the beginning of hand marking ballots there have been reports of the “short pencil” method of cheating. This was where a vote counter would hide pencil lead under a fingernail and fill in undervotes or overvote a race to cancel out a vote for an opponent. The same can happen today if the proper controls are not in place.
Imagine you have a counting team of two and both those people are supporting the same slate of candidates. (This is a Primary Election so you don’t have the option of one Democrat and one Republican.) You then have the counting taking place in a separate room from the voting so those two people are typically alone. The Presiding Judge rarely enters the room to check on the counters because the voting is moving at a steady pace so there is very little oversight. We would like to think that everyone is honest, but the door is wide open for fraud and the temptation is there. Those two people could easily fill in undervotes and overvote while no one is looking and they could easily get away with it. The ballots typically aren’t scanned before counting so there would be no way of knowing they were altered. The callers could also just ignore how the ballots are marked and call out their preferred candidates’ names instead. The talliers could be honest people with their heads down in their work and never know the difference.
These threats can be mitigated, but it is crucial to know that they exist. A scanner that simply captures the images could be added to the process to counter ballot tampering. Cameras could ensure that the tally team isn’t tampering with ballots. Also, the Presiding Judge could ensure that the tally team only has access to red or blue pens that would make tampering evident.
Unlike a machine count, there is no automatic partial count to verify a hand count. If there was fraud or human error it may not ever be detected. However, both methods have risks, and this is not an endorsement of one method over the other. It is simply intended to ensure all proper precautions are taken in each eventuality.