Carolyn Kaster, Associated Press (2022)
After months of laying the groundwork to hand-count thousands of ballots in the March 3 primary, the Dallas County Republican Party announced on Tuesday it has decided not to do so, opting instead to contract with the county elections department to administer the election using voting equipment.
The decision spares the party the pressure it likely would have faced if a hand-count had delayed results beyond the state’s 24-hour reporting requirements in the state’s closely watched GOP primary for U.S. Senate, among other offices.
In a statement posted on social media, Dallas County Republican Party Chair Allen West said he decided to work with the county to “conduct a precinct-based, community, separate Election Day electoral process.” The move, he said, “reduces the liabilities” of the party. “In this case, discretion is the better part of valor.”
The decision reverses months of statements suggesting the party was seriously preparing to count tens of thousands of Election Day ballots by hand — a move that would have affected all Dallas County voters, regardless of party.
[…]
In early December, West said the party had raised more than $400,000 toward a hand-count effort and recruited more than 1,000 workers. But there were still unresolved concerns about staffing, training, security, facilities, and funding, particularly as the Texas Secretary of State’s Office warned counties it may not have enough money to reimburse unusually high primary costs if many jurisdictions choose to hand-count.
Hand-counting would also have required significantly more polling locations and workers than recent primaries. In elections that are hand-counted, Texas law requires ballots to be cast and counted at assigned precincts, and in all elections, the law mandates that counting continue without interruption once polls close. Election workers must be paid at least $12 an hour, and large hand counts can stretch late into the night or beyond.
In an interview on Tuesday, West said the party would need at least 3,000 hand-counters but had recruited fewer than half that number. “We cannot take that risk of not being able to have the appropriate amount of counters because it would put our election judges in an untenable legal position,” he said. “We’ve got 63 days to go — early voting will start the 16th of February.”
See here for the background. It makes no difference to me if Dallas County Republicans want to make fools of themselves, but in this case it would have forced Dallas Democrats to have to abandon voting centers on Primary Day, and that would have sucked. I think – it’s not fully clear from the story – that this is no longer the case. Maybe running into the unforgiving logistics of this will dampen the enthusiasm for this madness a bit, but I wouldn’t count on it. There will need to be an actual flameout, with crippling costs and endless litigation, for the lesson to be learned. So maybe some other time.