Monday marked the start of early voting and, depending on which side you believe, the voting machines utilized by the Dallas County elections office either worked flawlessly or were filled with tiny agents of chaos determined to modify the selections you made before submitting your ballot.
In a two-page statement released Friday by the Dallas County Republican Party, Chairman Allen West warned of “grave risks” that he believes presented during an hours-long equipment test held last week. West’s claims call into question the reliability of Dallas County’s election equipment and process, with the local party leader alleging that “60–70% of Dallas County’s” early votes could be manipulated if they are not tallied on his preferred timeline.
West paints a grim — or should we say “grave,” as he did three times? — picture of our local elections system, but it’s a picture that all other parties, including Texas Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton, have denounced. In a statement made to X late Saturday evening, Paxton said that he believes West’s concerns are “premature” and inaccurate. This was before technical issues helped create wait times of 2 hours at the Dallas College Garland Center to vote on Monday.
“Dallas County voters must have complete assurance that their voting machines will work properly when early voting begins. They deserve their questions to be answered with clarity,” Paxton wrote. “Although the DCRP's press release suggests otherwise, the truth is that all parties involved have made significant progress toward resolving all outstanding issues.”
What Paxton did not mention was that last Thursday’s test of the county’s equipment was the third such audit that has taken place in the last month. In September, the county held a routine test of the voting machines where a “human error” led to “garbage results,” said state Sen. Nathan Johnson of Dallas, who attended Thursday’s inspection. The error was remedied, but inspired “noise” from a coalition of “right-wing conspiracy theorists” intent on sowing doubt in the electoral process.
🚨ELECTION INTEGRITY: The OAG has been aware of limited failed tests of voting machines in Dallas County and has been on the ground investigating these issues alongside the Secretary of State's office. Dallas County voters must have complete assurance that their voting machines…
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) October 20, 2024
A second test was requested by the secretary of state’s office and was attended by representatives from the attorney general’s office and from the local Democrat and Republican parties. The 13-hour test was held on Oct. 8 and “a billion different tests” generated the expected results, Johnson told the Observer. Following the second inspection, Dallas County Elections Administrator Heider Garcia warned in a statement that “lying about elections has become a way to make both financial and political profit.”
“To the public, pay close attention to who is lying to you and hold them accountable. Call them out, unfollow them on social media, because this will continue to happen unless we devalue the currency of election lies,” Garcia said.
By Johnson’s account, that satisfactory second test should have been the end of it. But, in the true fashion of Texas politics, it wasn’t. On Oct. 16, testimony by poll workers caused members of the Senate Committee on State Affairs to call for a third test of Dallas County’s systems. This time, Johnson decided to join.
During the test, he was reassured that “the machines are working.” Another Dallas-area Democrat, state Sen. Royce West, also attended the third trial and was also convinced of the county's electoral integrity.
“Some of these people genuinely believe there's some terrible threat and terrible risk of some funny business going on with their voting machines. I think that they are incorrect and I think they're determined to believe that,” Johnson said. “Bottom line, the machines are working well. And I would expect the attorney general's office to say so publicly. I would expect the secretary of state to say so publicly.”
Paxton has not expressed a full-fledged faith in Dallas County’s machines, but a report by the secretary of state’s election division had found that the machines “counted ballots correctly and complies with the applicable standards for certification of a voting system under the Texas Election Code” prior to the third inspection, the Dallas Morning News reports.
As early voting kicked off early Monday morning, West's weekly newsletter was delivered to the inboxes of his party's most loyal members. In the message, West encouraged his like-minded compatriots to hit the polls, despite his lingering doubts about the county's voting system.
With three sufficient audits in their back pocket, the Dallas County Elections Department was unsure if any additional tests would be conducted, a spokesperson told the Observer. If a fourth test is called for and held, Johnson believes it will “be the result of somebody's abuse of authority.”
“There's a great desire in people to be angry right now. And this is just the latest dishonest food that the right wing is feeding to people who are eager to eat up anger,” Johnson said. “Just calling for [the third test] unfairly and unduly casts doubt on the integrity of our elections, on the quality and integrity of our machines, and on the work that our county elections administrators do. And I think that is insulting to them and damaging to our democratic process.”
