This story has been updated to correct the information related to Proposal C of the University City.
Early voting for the November general election will begin on Monday, and voters will take additional steps in the ballot to use the new paper components to vote.
The increase in paper ballots is the result of Senate Bill No. 598, which Governor Greg Abbott signed into law on June 14 and requested paper election records.
When voters proceed to the polling booth, they will receive an access code – just as they have in the past – and a blank sheet of ballot paper they must insert into a thermal printer connected to the county’s Hart InterCivic voting machines. Voters will be as usual The same vote on the machine, and then you must click the “print ballot” button when prompted.
The thermal printer will print out a paper ballot with the voter’s choice. Then, before leaving the polling place, the paper ballot must be scanned and put into the locked ballot box. The ballot must be scanned and placed in the ballot box for the counting of votes.
“It’s no different from what they are used to, it’s just the last very important component,” said Brazos County election administrator Trudy Hancock.
She said that the polling station will be set up at the exit as a “bodyguard” to ensure that no one leaves without scanning the ballot, and emphasized that the printed ballot is not a receipt. Voters will not receive their ballot receipts.
Hancock said she believes the electronic voting system that the county has been using is safe, but admits that some people feel better when they can hold a ballot and see their ballot on a piece of paper.
“One thing we want to make sure is that our voters have confidence in what we do,” she said. “If our voters don’t have confidence in it, it doesn’t matter what we do. So if this is what it takes for our voters to have the piece of paper they can look at and understand, then this is what we want to do.”
Hancock said the system has a triple redundancy of paper ballots, electronic media in the scanner (which will be counted on election night), and ballots held in the scanner itself.
She said that when they were scanned, the paper ballots fell into a rolling zipper box inside a locked ballot box. The box was fixed and turned in at the same time as the scanner’s electronic media. Statistics are conducted on election night, she said.
“We always knew where those paper ballots and electronic media were,” Hancock said.
The county can continue to use its existing 480 machines, and supplier Hart InterCivic modified the machines with thermal printers needed to produce paper ballots. The county has been using Hart as its supplier since it switched from a punch card system to an electronic voting system in 2003.
Hancock said that adding paper records cost the county about $1.3 million, but she hopes that the county will get reimbursement from the state and attach it to the bill.
The November vote included eight state constitutional amendments, as well as college town and college district school district elections.
City elections include the 4th seat of the City Council-current Elizabeth Cunha and challenger William Wright-and the 6th seat of the City Council-current Dennis Maloney and challengers Mary-Anne Musso-Horland and David Levine-and three charter amendments. The third amendment to the bylaws-Proposal C-involves changing the college town elections back to odd-numbered years, a change that has caused disagreements among candidates. Voters in 2018 chose to allow cities to transition to even-numbered years, and Proposal C would move the four-year cycle back to odd-numbered years.
The school district’s election will have two general trustee competitions—Amy Archie vs. Darling Paine for first place, and Brian Decker vs. King Egg and Gu Mengmeng for second—and The four proposals together constitute a bond proposal of US$83.1 million.
Early voting will be held from October 18th to 23rd and October 25th to 27th from 8 am to 5 pm, and from October 28th to 29th from 7 am to 7 pm
The locations for early voting are Brazos County Electoral Management Office (300 E William J. Bryan Pkwy in Bryan), Arena Hall (2906 Tabor Road in Bryan), Galilee Baptist Church (804 N. Bryan), College Station Utilities Meeting and Training facilities (1603 Graham Road, University Station) and the Student Memorial Center on the Texas A&M campus.
Election day is November 2nd, the polling station will be open from 7 am to 7 pm, and people in line before 7 pm can vote.
To view sample ballots, check voter registration, and find information about candidates and voting locations, visit brazosvotes.org.
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Post time: Nov-10-2021
