February 12th, 2023:

Such a lovely little surprise tucked in there.

When state lawmakers passed a sweeping and controversial new election law in 2021, they quietly included a provision that drew little notice or debate.

But election administration experts say the measure is unprecedented, it mandates the purchase of voting technology that doesn’t currently exist — and it’s on the verge of costing taxpayers more than $100 million.

Sponsors of the provision said they aimed to prevent cheating in elections by prohibiting the use of modern technology to count votes and store cast ballot data. It passed without debate on a voice vote, and goes into effect just before the November 2026 general election.

When it does, millions of dollars’ worth of voting equipment will immediately be prohibited by the new law, a situation that could force at least some counties to hand-count ballots for lack of a legal alternative. Election officials across the state are worried they’ll be left without the tools necessary to safely deliver accurate and timely election results.

“Humans make mistakes. I’m very worried about the accuracy of our elections if we have to rely on a hand tally of votes,” said Chambers County Clerk Heather Hawthorne. “The inaccuracies would be huge and our state would be in trouble.”

Election security experts are also concerned. “You may be able to conduct an election but it would not be accurate, it would not be secure, and would not be timely,” said Ryan Macias, an election administration, security, and technology expert and founder of the elections consulting company RSM Elections Solutions. “With how complicated U.S. elections are, this is inconceivable.”

Here’s how it works now: With permission from the Texas secretary of state, election officials use media storage devices such as USB flash drives — provided by state-certified voting machine vendors — to collect data from ballot scanners used at precincts and voting centers on Election Day. Those drives are how officials easily and safely take that data on cast ballots to a central counting station, where they’re inserted into a tabulating computer to quickly gather results. The equipment involved is expensive, and elections officials reuse it each time an election is held, writing over the previous data with the new election data.

But the provision — proposed by Sen. Bob Hall (R-Edgewood) and supported by the then-bill’s primary author, Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola) — prohibits the use of this exact kind of data storage device that can be reused, including the ballot scanners and the tabulating machines. Experts say that, in order to fully comply with the new law, counties would have to buy entirely new voting systems each election cycle.

Lawmakers knew that, or should have — the secretary of state’s office provided cost estimates before the bill passed.

According to those estimates, it will cost taxpayers more than $116 million to replace the eliminated equipment. Because any new machines cannot be reused — the data can only be “written once” — counties would be forced to continue buying new equipment. The secretary of state’s office estimates that this ongoing cost will be more than $37 million every two years.

And that’s if counties can even find compliant voting technology to buy. The Texas secretary of state’s office says the two Texas-certified voting machine vendors, Hart InterCivic and Election Systems & Software, also known as ES&S, do not currently build such machines. In fact, no machine matching the specifications has been invented by any company operating in the United States. Nonetheless, Hall’s provision requires states to have purchased and implemented the technology by Sept. 1, 2026.

Hall did not respond to multiple requests for an interview, nor did Hughes. In an emailed statement to Votebeat, Hall insisted his intention was “to provide an additional measure of security,” and that the technology would ensure that final counts represent voter intent. Asked how he’d achieve additional security by requiring counties to buy  nonexistent machines, he did not respond. Asked to offer his thoughts on the total cost to taxpayers, he did not respond.

Hall said much the same when he offered the bill on the floor in 2021. The provision would, he said, prevent votes from being “manipulated” between the precincts or vote centers and the central counting station. Hall provided no evidence of any instances of manipulation at the time, nor did he do so for this story. He also did not respond to questions about the practical application of the law.

There’s more, so read the rest. Of interest is that the story quotes election clerks from two rural Republican counties complaining about the cost of this provision. If you think it takes Harris County too long to count ballots now, imagine how much time they’ll need to do it by hand.

Anyway, Bob Hall is both one of the dumbest and most conspiracy-addled Senators out there, but this provision was supported by SB1 author Bryan Hughes as well, and he’s supposed to have a few working brain cells. The good news, if you want to be optimistic, is that there’s two sessions in which to fix this travesty. At least now we know it’s there. Getting someone on the Republican side to admit to it and try to deal with it, that’s the bigger challenge. Time’s a-wasting, y’all.