In one Texas county, elections officials shoulder new costs and burdens to appease skeptics

[RandySF]

In Brazos County, suspicions about elections burst into the open last fall, just weeks after a visit from an out-of-state group calling for ballots to be hand-counted.

“Everything seems great. But if you study this, you’ll find that it’s possible to pre-program electronic voting machines and make it do whatever you want,” one resident said at a commissioners court meeting last November, without evidence to support the claims.

“Ever since these machines came along, I’ve heard nothing but accusations of fraud,” said another resident. “I am asking you to investigate. Something was wrong in the 2020 election. Voting machines do only what they’re programmed to do.”

Similar comments continued to pour in for months — at meetings, in emails to county officials, and through public record requests to the county elections department — from people who insisted that the best answer is for counties to ditch voting equipment altogether and to hand count ballots.





https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/23/brazos-county-elections-skeptics/

[yellowdogintexas]

1. Tarrant County (Fort Worth) Commissioners Court just voted to allow

pre printed ballot numbering. It is so stupid. We don't need it, and we don't need to spend the money. We have a warehouse full of blank paper ready to go - about a 5 year supply. This is supposed to start in November.

Our ballots are blank, after the voter finishes making selections, the machine prints the selections; a QR code is printed as well which has the ballot number, & the voter's precinct number. The voter can request a new ballot to change anything they wish. Sometimes this is just because the voter accidentally skipped a candidate, or realized they chose the wrong one. We let them do this twice. Sometimes the machine jams the ballot and we have to use a new one. The original ballot(s) are "spoiled" , listed on a specific form, sealed individually in an envelope which is placed inside another envelope with all the other spoiled ballots. At the end of the day, the list and the individual envelopes are placed into a very colorful yellow pouch, which is zipped and sealed. We count the number of spoiled ballots and list the total on an end of day form.

When we spoil the ballot, we have to issue a new access code for the voter; we indicate we are doing this for spoiled ballot reasons. It's a process. There is a process and an envelope for EVERYTHING.

We have to account for all used ballots in some fashion. We get a documented number of blank ballots. At the end of the day we add up the scanner total, the spoiled ballot total, the provisional total and blank ballots which were wrinkled beyond redemption by the machine and the number of remaining ballots (they are in shrink wrap with total on the package) The total of all this should match the initial number of ballots we received with the equipment.

There is no way to corrupt this system! The voting machines are not online. The scanners are not online. The voting machines have no memory. The voter registration logs are accessible through a secure link; the voter verifies and signs that everything is correct. If the voter tries to vote at another location, the check in will tell the clerk.

It is utterly ridiculous, yet our county judge and two of the commissioners are convinced there is hanky panky somewhere somehow so we are going to spend a bunch of money every election and waste all that blank paper. Our County Judge is owned lock stock and barrel by TIm Dunn and his cronies out in West Texas. Avowed Christian Nationalists/Dominionists