Whoops! But better in a primary than the real thing in November. [Examiner] Election officials discovered 10,000 uncounted mail-in ballots over the weekend in Texas's most populous county after the first-in-the-nation 2022 primary last week.
Two close Democratic primary races, one for a state House seat and another for Texas attorney general, hang in the balance. The ballots, 6,000 for Democrats and 4,000 for Republicans, were scanned into the tabulation computer, but they were not added to the unofficial final results, Harris County officials announced Sunday.
"While we understand the seriousness of this error, the ability to identify and correct this issue is a result of a lengthy and rigorous process and is a positive example of the process ultimately working as it should," the county, which includes most of Houston, said in a statement obtained by the Texas Tribune.
Candis Houston, who is trailing incumbent state Rep. Harold Dutton Jr. by 136 votes in the Democratic primary, has already conceded the race. Dutton was baffled that so many ballots had gone missing without anyone noticing.
"It seems to me that somebody should’ve known that 10,000 ballots were missing," Dutton said. "If 10,000 ballots were missing and nobody knew that, God help us."
Joe Jaworski, former mayor of Galveston, Texas, leads civil rights attorney Lee Merritt by 1,418 votes in the race to become the Democratic nominee for attorney general. Although Jaworski claimed victory Friday, Merritt has not conceded, and it remains unclear who will receive the second spot in a runoff planned for May. Incumbent Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will also face a runoff election after failing to secure at least 50% of the vote in the Lone Star State’s Republican primary.
Among the other complications reported for the March 1 primary in Harris County were delays caused by 1,600 damaged ballot sheets, two voting locations reporting minor technical difficulties with their machines, and a shortage of election workers.
In addition, as a consequence of stricter new voting rules, thousands of mail-in ballots lacking proper identification were sent back, the News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported.
How many of those went to real people at real addresses? |