This is going to be a disaster.
Dallas County Republicans say they’re planning to go ahead with hand-counting tens of thousands of Election Day ballots cast in the upcoming March 3 primary after raising more than $400,000 towards the effort.
The county GOP party also said more than 1,000 people have signed up to count the ballots in an effort that would make the county the largest jurisdiction in the country to hand-count results on Election Day. Other large jurisdictions in the country have hand-counted ballots, but they’ve done so after an election and to verify the accuracy of machine counts, including as part of an audit.
“Not only are the eyes of Texas upon us, but the eyes of America,” said Dallas County Republican Party Chairman Allen West, a former congressman, in a social media statement Friday. West said the effort is meant to “restore confidence in our electoral process.”
That decision means all Dallas County voters will have to cast ballots at their assigned precinct rather than at countywide vote centers on Election Day. By law, if one party wants to use precinct-based voting, then the other must do the same. And by law, any hand-count of ballots has to be done at each of the county’s polling locations. During the 12-day early voting period, voters will still be able to cast ballots anywhere in the county.
In Texas, political parties have the authority to decide how they’ll administer primary elections and how they want to count ballots on Election Day. State law requires the party to report election results within 24 hours after polls close. Failure to do so could result in a misdemeanor charge.
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Voters in the Democratic primary will still use voting equipment to cast their ballots. But Dallas County Democratic Party Chairman Kardal Coleman said the requirement to vote in precincts rather than countywide vote centers means the party will now need to secure more than the usual 450 locations for Election Day and the additional workers to staff them.
“Not just for Democratic voters, but this is going to adversely affect every voter who may show up in the wrong location,” Coleman said. “It’s already causing chaos and confusion.”
The county Republican party also must secure a minimum of 360 polling locations with the required space needed to conduct the hand count — fewer than the Democrats because Republicans are the minority party in Dallas County. The GOP will have to find enough money for all needed supplies, including everything from ballot boxes to printing tally sheets to the tables and chairs needed for counting. It isn’t clear how much of that has been done.
In a brief text message Monday, West clarified the party does not plan to hand-count absentee ballots or ballots cast early in person — only Election Day ballots.
According to a 2024 primary election final cost report Votebeat obtained from the Texas Secretary of State Office through a public records request, Dallas County Republicans employed more than 1,400 workers on Election Day at a cost of more than $248,000. Polling place rental fees cost nearly $50,000. Those costs are certain to increase, because hand-counting requires more people to count and additional locations.
See here for some background. This really sucks for Dallas County Democrats, who are yoked to this hair-brained scheme against their will. I hope they really push the idea of voting early to their voters, so as to avoid the chaos on Primary Day as much as possible.
In 2022, as a point of comparison, Dallas County Republicans cast 48,931 votes on Primary Day. That’s six times as many votes that Gillespie County cast in the 2024 primary, which as we know was an error-ridden debacle that cost them a ton of money – per the story, “more than $40,000 for 355 workers who spent nearly 24 hours counting” versus “45 workers at a cost of nearly $7,000” in 2020 when they machine-counted. And it’s a far less transparent method than the normal way:
The only people permitted in the area where the hand count is happening are precinct judges, who are in charge of supervising the polling locations, the election clerks counting ballots, and poll watchers appointed by candidates or political action committees.
And unless a candidate requests a recount or the party decides to do so, no provision in state law requires a recount or an audit of hand-counted election results to check for accuracy.
One can see the vast potential for lawsuits here, which we should all be rooting for. And yet, with all that, Gillespie County will be hand-counting again this year, because addicts need their fix. I have to imagine the Dallas County GOP will declare success no matter how far off the rails this little indulgence goes. Hey Dan Patrick, this is why your people file frivolous lawsuits over the results of constitutional amendment elections.
UPDATE: Tarrant County Republicans will not hand count, but they are handcount-curious, so maybe next time.
I could imagine a scenario where we don’t know who won some of the contested primary races until several days after the primary as a result of this madness. I have tabulated ballots in a paper ballot county, and the chances for mistakes, double counting, mixing up piles, are numerous.