A big change you should know about in Collin County – on this first day of early voting. For the first time in years, voters will return to hand-marked ballots.
This change came with a price tag of $2.3 million. NBC 5 spoke with some voters Monday, who noticed the change.
Texans are voting on 17 constitutional propositions and a slate of local issues, generally a low-turnout election.
“It makes you take time to read it and see what you’re voting on,” said Alexandria Hill from McKinney. She was in and out in a few minutes but this year she had to fill out a bubble by hand to the left side of her choice. It reminded her of years past.
“I think it’s a little better. Because normally you just click, click, click. We’re so used to this clicking; this time you have to read every word, and you have to be careful about what you’re choosing,” said Hill.
Despite many successful elections, Collin County commissioners wanted voters to feel their elections were more secure. After a March executive order from President Trump, in June they changed from computer screens to multiple-choice bubbles. Computerized tabulators will still count the ballots.
“Let me just stress: it’s hand-marked, not hand-counted. Voters will be given a full sheet of paper,” said Kaleb Breaux, Collin County Elections Administrator.
Breaux expects there to be a bit of a learning curve; it’s a big and expensive change to make in several months.
“Nothing’s perfect. That’s the world of elections that we live in. We can plan it all on paper and it sounds good, but until you actually roll it out, we won’t know how it will work. So this gives us an opportunity to identify some things and make tweaks to the system to improve the experience,” said Breaux.
He says this low-turnout constitutional election is a great time to test the new system before larger, higher-turnout, and more intense elections come next year.
Election Day is November 4 but before that, we have nearly two weeks of early voting beginning now and running until October 31.