RELATED: Some lawmakers want to ban countywide voting on Election Day. Local officials are pushing back.
There’s been quick pushback locally against a new effort out of Austin to curtail countywide polling.
Gregg County Judge Bill Stoudt didn’t mince words about the issue, frustrated and perplexed by a pair of bills that aim to axe the program. Last week, his commissioners court joined more than a dozen others in adopting counter-resolutions to the developing legislation out of the state capital.
It’s been just four years since Gregg made a substantial investment to enable voters to cast ballots at any of polling station throughout the county, Stoudt insisted, and it’s done everything it needs to.
“I really can’t tell you what they’re doing,” he said, “other than they’re changing a system that the Secretary of State recommended, and we spent close to 1.2 million putting it in. This system we’ve got was picked because of its security. You can’t break into it. It’s got checks and balances. It’s not hooked to the Internet. It’s totally self-contained.
“We’ve never had a security break or question of our voting results in 22 years I’ve been here. If they’ve got problems in other parts of the state, I’m not aware of it, but we don’t have problems here.”
Gregg County Elections Administrator Jennifer Briggs warns that the legislators are running the risk of opening Pandora’s pollbook – if a broader effort succeeds in turning back the clocks to paper ballots, it will open the floodgates on unintended consequences and expenses that will, ultimately, fall on local taxpayers.
“People who say paper ballots are more secure have never seen a pencil and an eraser. That’s all it would take,” she said. Likewise, “When you hand count, you’re opening yourself up to human error.
“The electronic aspect is faster. It’s accurate.”
In 2025, a paper-based system would also be exponentially more expensive, Briggs warned; current laws require paper records be stored 22-months after an election.
“I would estimate this will triple or quadruple the amount of storage that we’ll need,” she said. With far larger counties throughout the state, it would mean millions of boxes of ballots, affidavits and other requisite paperwork. That said, “Gregg County is almost maxed out on what we can build in our current facility.”
That’s beside the fact a hit to electronic voting would require more poll workers at more polling sites in publicly-accessible, secured buildings that currently don’t exist in many areas.
“People hear a lot of rumors and sometimes jump on a bandwagon without realizing the entire logistical aspect of what that would require,” Briggs said. “It sounds like an easy thing — ‘Well, let’s go to paper’ — but it’s not as easy when you consider all the aspects involved and what else this is going to effect.
“The only reason I have heard why certain senators are pushing for this kind of bill is they felt it was less secure to have countywide polling. I would respectfully disagree.”
Those feelings and fears don’t sync up with the facts, according to Stoudt and Briggs.
“We have no problems with early voting. Never have had a problem. It’ the same type of thing on Election Day,” the elections chief said. “Lots of times our legislature passes bills without funding. Basically, that ends up coming out of our county budget, which is our taxpayer dollars.”
With almost 100 Texas counties currently utilizing countywide, more and more are falling in line against the latest legislative effort.
“It might not make any difference but at least we voiced our opposing of the bill,” the county judge added, gratified District 7 Rep. Jay Dean is against the bill, too. Per Stoudt, “Austin’s real good for politics, but they’ve got really bad policies sometime. This is some political group that says we’ve got a problem.
“I just can’t tell you what the reasoning is. I don’t know the answer to it. I hope it’s one of those bills that dies for lack of any support for it… It’s very frustrating for the local elected officials when these kinds of things take place.”