Following a problematic start to the first week of early voting, Dallas County voters will have more opportunities to cast their ballots before Election Day.
The Dallas County Commissioners Court voted on Friday to extend the 7 p.m. voting center closure time to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Nov. 1, the final three days of early voting.
The decision was made during a special session called after the first week began Monday with glitches in the electronic pollbook software used to check in voters, which resulted in long wait times and some being issued ballots for precincts where they do not live.
Commissioners on Friday did not discuss those problems but emphasized the importance of giving residents more time to cast their ballots. The commission approved the change in a 3-0 vote, with County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins and Commissioner Elba Garcia absent.
“I can think of no greater concern that this court should have than to make sure that people have the right to vote,” Commissioner Andrew Sommerman said. “The greatest and most important politician in any election is the voter, so we have to give them these opportunities to be able to vote, and extending hours is essential to accomplish that task.”
State law requires a five-day notice to alter the election schedule, so hours prior to Wednesday remain unchanged as 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday; 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday; and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Tuesday.
Election Administrator Heider Garcia told commissioners his office has been coordinating with all 71 voting center locations and poll workers to accommodate the schedule changes. He said the six additional hours over the last three days of early voting will cost the county between $300,000 and $400,000.
“The cost is not the issue,” Commissioner John Wiley Price responded.
In an interview with The Dallas Morning News, Garcia said the problems with the electronic pollbooks were largely mitigated on Monday with a configuration update through the manufacturer, Election Systems & Software. But the problem has not been totally resolved. Check-in delays and ballots being issued to voters with incorrect precincts continued to a lesser extent through the week, Garcia said.
Delays have been caused when pollbook devices showed blank screens and error messages as poll workers tried to check in voters, requiring them to reboot the devices. It led to lines of up to two hours in some voting center locations on Monday, although those lengthy waits were not reported later in the week.
In other instances during check-in, barcodes corresponding to incorrect precincts were printed on voters’ ballots. In some cases, poll workers and voters recognized the errors, allowing corrected ballots to be issued before voters went to the voting machines.
But Garcia confirmed that an unknown number of voters completed and submitted ballots tied to precincts where they do not live.
He said the county will not be able to confirm the number of ballots cast in incorrect precincts until after Election Day because they are currently in locked boxes in polling places.
After the results are counted, elections officials will be able to see the number of ballots cast for every precinct and compare that to how many people checked in for those precincts through the pollbooks.
Officials will not be able to confirm the identities of the people who voted in incorrect precincts due to the anonymity of the ballot sheets, according to Garcia.
He confirmed the issuance of incorrect ballots resulted in some voters submitting ballots without local races or propositions they should have been able to participate in. In other cases, residents may have cast votes in local races they shouldn’t have voted in, he said.
Those votes will still be counted in the final election results because there is no legal remedy before counting the votes. But Garcia said legal challenges to the outcomes of races that may be affected are possible.
Garcia said the problems are isolated to the check-in software and are unrelated to the tabulation machines that count votes, meaning there is no impact on the accuracy of vote counting.
In an interview, Sandy Thornton, president of the League of Women Voters of Dallas, said while the group received comments from voters about issues with voting this week, it should not deter the public from casting their ballots or having confidence in the accuracy of the election results.
“My concern is these early problems might cause people to not vote, and that shouldn’t be the case,” Thornton said. “Overall, our election process is in very good shape. If we can find problems and we identify them quickly, then people should have the faith, the certainty, that their vote is going to count.”