Voters continue to crowd polling sites across San Antonio on Thursday, October 22. Bexar County is on track for a record-breaking turnout in a non-presidential election, but can the county handle the massive turnout? Complaints from the polls paint a troubling picture.
With nine days of early voting left before Election Day – and before the ballots are tallied to determine the next several years of Texas leadership – turnout in Bexar County has already reached a fifth of early voters in the 2024 election (a Presidential year). Midterm to midterm, that figure climbs to 36%.
But that wave of civic activity is accompanied by several frustrating accounts from polling sites across the city. One voter tells MySA they waited in line only to be told a ballot was missing. Poll workers called the Bexar County Elections Department, which reportedly confirmed their registration status, but they were left waiting for a resolution.
After about an hour, the system was updated. This resident may have been able to cast a vote – after giving up an extra hour of their day – but what happens if the solution isn’t so simple? After all, the Elections Department reportedly had a challenging time figuring out why this issue arose in the first place. And it allegedly wasn’t the first time it’d happened that day.
MySA reached out to the Bexar County Public Information Office and Bexar County Elections Administrator Michele Carew to learn what happens when a voter’s name is inexplicably missing from the voter rolls on site. Would this mean more provisional ballots? If so, could this delay counting the election results?
“If they are registered, they should be shown as such on the on-site system. If not, they need to confirm with the judge who will call the Elections Department if confirmation is needed,” a Bexar County assistant public information officer told MySA without addressing the rest of our questions.
ACLU Texas says all voters are entitled to a provisional ballot, even if they don’t appear in the poll book at a voting site in town. But it’s then left to election officials to investigate those provisional ballots to determine whether the person was registered to vote.
According to the 2024 election reconciliation totals, 94% of the provisional ballots cast in the 2024 election were rejected. There’s also no explanation for this, raising questions about whether the tens of thousands of backlogged voter registrations from months ago are still being processed.
“Is anyone else’s voter registration status showing an effective (date) after Election Day even though you submitted the form before the October 5 deadline?” a confused resident asked online. “I know the Bexar County Registrar’s office said they’re backlogged with registrations, but I mailed mine in on September 15…”
As early voting kicked off in San Antonio, residents began sounding the alarm about incorrect ballots. At the polls, residents were missing propositions for their school districts and, at times, saw neighboring school districts instead. Recently, the elections administrator pointed the finger at the Secretary of State.
“The data we received from the state – there were splits in districts,” Carew said Tuesday, October 22, pointing to streets split down the middle with different districts or voting districts on either side. “The data we received from the state transposed the ballot styles.”
In total, there were 150 “splits” where incorrect ballots could become an issue, says Carew, but it’s unclear how many faulty ballots that translates to. She said the issue was resolved within an hour after it was brought to the Election Department’s attention.
“We won’t even know how many people are affected until the ballots are back and we’re able to examine them,” Carew said, placing the onus on the voter to know what should be on their ballot and to notify an election judge if items are missing or incorrect.