County leaders also blame Astros World Series win for Election Day problems
On Election Day, some voting locations failed to open on time. The Harris County post-election assessment doesn’t say how many locations opened late. However, it does place blame on the Astros, saying:
“Election Day voting did not proceed according to plan for 170 voting centers because of the celebratory World Series Parade. Several ISD’s gave their staff the Monday off to participate in the parade. As a result, the presiding judges at those locations had to reschedule set up for Monday evening/night as opposed to Monday morning and for some locations set up occurred on Tuesday morning. This resulted in reports from several election judges that they were delayed in opening at 7:00am due to limited time to setup on Election Day.”
“I don’t even understand that,” Ramsey explained. “So, you say the Astros impacted polling locations opening up? Well, do you have a telephone? Can you call someone?”
Several school districts, including Houston ISD, closed on Monday for the championship parade. The event started at 11 a.m. and was over by early afternoon. Because of the late opening at several locations and other problems, voting was extended an hour. It was later overturned.
Report lacks specifics on several issues because it places blame on Harris County Republican Party for getting involved
In its assessment in what went wrong, county leaders said they couldn’t get answers from some workers and the report places blame on the Harris County Republican Party.
“During the post-election assessment, (Elections Administrator’s Office) staff reviewed call logs and support tickets to gain an understanding of what occurred on Election Day. The EAO’s recruiting and training staff conducted a calling assessment to all (polling judges and alternate judges). Although EOA staff was able to speak to most of the PJs and AJs, many of them provided confusing answers and some declined to speak after reportedly being advised not to do so by the Harris County Republican Party,” the report said.
“We were not advising them not to,” Harris County Republican Party Chairwoman Cindy Siegel said. “We said if they were going to speak to them that they needed to make sure they were clear in what they were reporting. and that if they could they could have someone else on the line with them.”
County leaders said the Republican Party also played a role in delaying votes getting back to the main headquarters. To help get ballots from voting locations to the headquarters, the county offers a driver program. The report said, “The Harris County Republican Party advised that all of their presiding judges would not participate in the County driver program and would deliver their respective election returns to Central Count, although several of their presiding judges requested and received a driver.”
Report outlines what the calls for help were from election workers
To help election workers with issues, the Elections Administration set up a help desk, which received more than 1,600 calls for assistance. Of those calls, 23% were related to issues with the voting machines, 8% were about supplies and ballot paper, and 9% were tied to worker procedural questions.
The report said county staff “takes all support ticket calls very seriously regardless of the nature of the call and endeavors to remedy the situation either by telephone support or dispatching a technician to support on site. During the election and after the election we review all support logs from the voting centers and look for trends. Once we identify an issue that is occurring at multiple locations or across the County, we discuss with the vendor and identify ways to resolve or correct an issue in real time, if possible or to identify if the matter requires a long-term solution.”
What needs to happen in order to fix future elections
The report also outlines what needs to change in order to improve future elections. County leaders said they need to create a communications system because there is “no real visibility” to track a call for help, and when it’s completed.
They said they want to hire more full-time staff, although it doesn’t say how many more personnel is needed.
The Elections Administration also wants more resources and tools to fix voting machine issues when they arise. In addition, they want to evaluate election workers and determine how best to use them, as well as improve training.
Source: ABC13
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