Getty Images
Audio By Carbonatix
Dallas County Republicans will agree to countywide voting for May runoff races in the wake of a primary Election Day fraught with confusion, the county chair said this week.
In a statement announcing the decision, Dallas County Republican Party Chair Allen West said he plans to sign an amended contract allowing for countywide voting in the May 26 runoff election. West, who defended precinct-based voting following the March 3 election, said it would leave the party exposed to “increased risk and voter confusion” if continued through May.
The party still plans to hold separate primary runoff elections, the statement said, meaning Republican and Democratic voters will be split into party-based lines at voting centers, use separate equipment and hand ballots to different election workers.
“From the end of April through May there will be municipal elections and early voting for the runoff,” West said in the statement. “All of these elections are countywide voting. To then shift for the one day runoff election to precincts would bring about large scale disruption.”
When asked for a comment from West for this story, party representatives responded with the previously issued statement. In the statement, West alluded to potential dissent among his party, writing that “Those that disagree with this decision are free to seek to replace me as Chairman.”
Republicans originally chose to pursue separate, precinct-based voting on Election Day with the aim of hand-counting ballots. While cost constraints nixed plans to count ballots by hand, Republicans chose to move forward with precinct-based voting, in part due to concerns about voter fraud.
That’s part of the reason party officials like West have defended the push to hold separate primaries with precinct-based voting, a shift from previous elections that officials and experts warned would lead to chaos on Election Day. With precinct-based voting, voters can cast ballots only at their assigned precinct, often the voting center nearest to their residence, a departure from the countywide system used by Dallas County in recent years.
On Tuesday, Dallas County Elections Administrator Paul Adams told county commissioners that 12,674 people were turned away and redirected to their designated precinct on March 3. However, that number is based on texts sent to voters directing them to their assigned polling place, one of several methods used by election navigators to redirect voters, suggesting even more were turned away.
Mass voter confusion was one of several reasons cited by Dallas County Judge Staci Williams in an emergency decision extending voting hours by two hours for Democratic primary races. The order was eventually overturned by the Texas Supreme Court, leaving votes cast after 7 p.m. uncounted.
Adams signed the order after being petitioned by Dallas County Democrats, who said the GOP had purposely created chaos at the ballot box to disenfranchise voters. Following the election, West blamed the confusion on Democrats’ failure to educate voters.
‘What Took You So Long?’
Dallas County Democratic Party Chair Kardal Coleman said attorneys are reviewing the documents before signing the agreement, but added that his first reaction was “What took you so long?”
“This is something that we have been explaining to the GOP and their chair for months, and we didn’t have to have the type of primary that we did on election day,” Coleman said. “To me, it was all avoidable. And now that they’re seeing the fallout and the disenfranchisement, not just of Democrats, but of Republicans.”
At the County Commissioners Court meeting on Tuesday, Adams said both Democratic and Republican voters had been affected by the confusion, though exactly how many GOP voters were affected remains unclear.
Coleman disputed the assertion that Democrats failed to educate voters about the change before March 3 and called Republicans’ decision to move back to countywide voting a “half-step” in the right direction, adding that continuing to hold separate primaries puts further strain on polling equipment that has had issues in the past.
“You saw in the primary election where you had high record number turnout for Democrats who have longer wait lines, and you have empty machines, Republican machines that weren’t weren’t being utilized, and so we didn’t have that equipment to be able to effectively serve the voters, to decrease waits and to make sure that people were being served in a timely fashion,” said Coleman.
Dallas County Democratic voters will cast ballots in several notable runoff elections, including the race between Colin Allred and U.S. Rep Julie Johnson for Texas’ newly-redrawn 33rd Congressional District. More notable, however, are the primary runoffs in the GOP camp. In addition to the primary to replace Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the outgoing attorney general is headed to a runoff against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP Senate primary. The winner will face James Talarico, who defeated U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett on March 3.
Coleman said he believes the weight of the statewide Republican races likely factored into the decision to move back to countywide voting.
“I think that they’re counting the cost, and they want to make sure that every vote in their election is counted. So do we; we don’t want our voters disenfranchised,” Coleman said. “We don’t believe in disenfranchisement at all, and so I don’t want their voters to be disenfranchised either. I wish that this was an awakening that we could have had from the Republican party ahead of the primary, but I’m glad that we’re having this conversation.”
Polling places and other specifics for the May 26 primary election will be determined after the agreement is signed, Coleman said.
“Whether it’s this tactic or something else that they try to deploy, we want to be ready, and so that’s what we’re focusing on right now, readiness, preparedness and making sure that our voters are engaged and educated about the process when they show up to vote,” Coleman said.
