Tarrant County addresses election concerns after hearing from citizens for weeks
Tarrant County residents and commissioners on Tuesday got a crash course in elections after weeks of citizens raising concerns about the process.
Tarrant County Election Administrator Heider Garcia walked through a 71-page presentation addressing the intricacies of how elections are run and answering common questions. Dozens of people signed up to speak on Tuesday, Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley said at the top of the meeting.
The room was packed as county officials spent more than an hour speaking ahead of public comment. Roughly 20 others at one point sat outside the building watching a livestream of the meeting on a television. Members of the public also tuned in from an overflow room.
“What I hope everybody will learn from the meeting is that we have a very well-thought-out process that we believe is not only very transparent but also maintains, which is our top priority, maintains the integrity of the voting process,” Whitley told the Star-Telegram ahead of the meeting.
Commissioners are limited in their response to citizens who discuss issues not on the meeting’s agenda, so Tuesday’s work session offered an opportunity to address issues that have been brought up in recent weeks during public comment.
The meeting comes after a primary election that ran less than smoothly. Across the state, including in Tarrant County, hundreds of mail-in ballots were rejected because of a new ID requirement as part of the Legislature’s wide-ranging election bill. There were was also a Democratic poll worker shortage and delayed election results after a computer malfunction.
Garica’s presentation aimed to answer frequent questions, like why there are separate lines for Democrats and Republicans when voters go to cast ballots in primaries (the parties don’t hold joint primaries). He reviewed the costs of elections, absentee voting, how results are tallied and stressed that the results can be audited.
He stressed that there’s a paper ballot for every voter and that voting equipment is regularly tested.
Some members of the public expressed confidence in the election system.
“In my time working for election, I have never encountered a person in my party or another party or anybody in-between who’s not there to uphold the ideals of our democracy and have a fair and good election,” said Kay Duffy, who said she’s served as an election worker for the Democratic Party.
Others expressed concerns about machines being hacked or manipulated and wanted a return to paper ballots.
“The simple solution in my opinion to restore integrity and trust in America’s elections, we need to return, at least for the foreseeable future to paper ballots and hand counting the ballots,” said Dianna Boger, who said she’s served as an election worker with the Republican Party.
Outside the building in the hour before the meeting began, some displayed a long black sign with the words “Whitley: Ditch the Machines” in white text.
Whitley in an interview expressed support for the current machines. Voters cast their ballots on a machine and a paper ballot that people can review is printed before being cast.
He pushed back against using ballots filled out by hand, expressing concerns with human error and the volume of ballots in the county.
“It would create a major shutdown in the process,” he said.
Whitley defended election results in the county throughout the meeting, with discussion heated at points. After recent elections, samples of votes selected by the Texas Secretary of State’s office were counted by hand, and no problems were found, he told the Star-Telegram. He reiterated the point during the public meeting.
“It was perfect,” he said, during an exchange with a resident about voting machines.
The meeting ended after about 2.5 hours of public comment.
This story was originally published April 26, 2022 at 5:04 PM.
