{"id":170373,"date":"2026-02-18T22:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T22:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/170373\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T22:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T22:36:12","slug":"gillespie-county-gop-drops-early-voting-hand-count-amid-shortages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/170373\/","title":{"rendered":"Gillespie County GOP drops early voting hand count amid shortages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Texas\u2019 free newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Gillespie County Republicans have scrapped plans to hand count all of their 2026 primary ballots after failing to recruit enough workers \u2014 at least for early voting. The lack of manpower prompted party officials to vote last week to use the county\u2019s voting equipment to tabulate thousands of ballots expected to be cast during the two weeks before Election Day on March 3. <\/p>\n

However, Gillespie Republicans still plan to hand count ballots cast on Election Day, party officials told Votebeat. <\/p>\n

The effort has deepened a divide within the county party: Some members wish to ditch electronic voting equipment entirely and hand count all ballots, while others trust that the county\u2019s electronic voting equipment is safe and the process contains appropriate checks and balances. It\u2019s a continuation of a long-running disagreement that began in 2024, when the county party first hand counted primary ballots. <\/p>\n

In 2024, Republicans in Gillespie County spent nearly 24 hours on Election Day hand counting<\/a> more than 8,000 ballots, deploying over 350 workers they\u2019d spent months training and recruiting. Party officials later found tallying errors in 12 of the county\u2019s 13 precincts, but because Texas law does not require a post-election audit of hand-counted ballots, those results were never formally reviewed for accuracy. The hand counting effort cost more than $40,000 \u2014 more than five times the roughly $7,000 spent in 2020, when the party used voting machines. Those expenses are ultimately reimbursed by the state.<\/p>\n

Bruce Campbell, the chair of the county Republican Party, told Votebeat that since last week\u2019s vote to use the county\u2019s voting equipment to tabulate early votes, county party officials in charge of recruiting workers to count ballots have kept him in the dark about the number of people who have signed up to work on Election Day. Campbell said he doesn\u2019t know how many will show up. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey think that I\u2019m going to somehow talk [workers] out of hand counting, which would not benefit me at all,\u201d Campbell, who defended the 2024 hand count, said. \u201cI just want the votes counted, and when it didn\u2019t look like we were going to have enough people, I called a meeting and solved the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

How Texas safeguards elections \u2014 and what still poses a threat<\/p>\n

Get the latest reporting on voting technology, misinformation, the push for hand-counting ballots, and more in Votebeat Texas’ free newsletter, delivered twice a month.<\/p>\n

Worker shortages expose rift over machines, hand counting<\/p>\n

The last time Campbell was given updated figures was at a party executive committee meeting in January, when the precinct chairs informed him that only about 60 people had signed up for a job that requires closer to 200. <\/p>\n

Jim Riley, the county\u2019s election administrator, declined a request for comment. He sent an email to the Texas Secretary of State\u2019s Office late last month to say the local Republican party was receiving \u201clittle or no response in recruiting and training hand counters\u201d and that some Republican precinct chairs had begun to \u201cobject\u201d to the process of hand counting. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know this is a local problem and a Party problem. Yet, the splash back will hurt our elections in Gillespie,\u201d he wrote, asking for guidance on how best to ensure votes were counted.<\/p>\n

The Secretary of State\u2019s Office told Votebeat they responded to Riley\u2019s request for guidance via phone call, and declined further comment.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the office sent election inspectors to monitor Gillespie County\u2019s hand count, but no post-election audit was conducted because state law does not require audits of ballots counted by hand. This year, one inspector will observe part of early voting and two will be there on Election Day, according to the agency. <\/p>\n

Texas law does require a bipartisan post-election audit of machine-counted ballots in a random sampling of precincts. But Gillespie Republicans say they plan to go further, voluntarily hand recounting all ballots cast in the election whether they were initially counted by hand or by machine \u2014 a step that would require recruiting many of the same volunteers a second time.<\/p>\n

Party officials have not released details about how that recount would work. But unlike in 2024, this year\u2019s ballots were designed to be scanned by a tabulator if needed, allowing results to be verified without organizing another full hand count. It\u2019s unclear if party officials will take that step.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the old ballot design meant results could only be counted \u2014 and recounted \u2014 by hand. Without a scannable paper trail, there was no practical way to independently verify the outcome without organizing another full hand count, so the 2024 results were never formally audited or otherwise checked for accuracy. This year, the ballots can be run through voting machines, a decision Riley told the Secretary of State\u2019s Office he made because he \u201canticipated the collapse potential\u201d of the hand count.<\/p>\n

In the same email to the state, Riley described a chaotic internal debate within the county GOP. During a Zoom call held the day he sent the email, he wrote, party leaders acknowledged the mounting problems but disagreed about how to move forward \u2014 and some did not show up at all. \u201cI didn\u2019t expect the childish behavior of these folks,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n

That meeting described in Riley\u2019s email was the precursor for last week\u2019s vote to count the early voting ballots electronically instead. The vote passed 7-3, Campbell said. <\/p>\n

In September, Campbell sent the party\u2019s 13 precinct chairs \u2014 local elected party officials tasked with staffing polling locations \u2014 contact information for all 355 workers who\u2019d counted ballots in 2024. Campbell said the recruitment effort by precinct chairs wasn\u2019t done early enough and there was little interest among hand counters for returning this year. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople weren\u2019t signing up like they did last time for whatever reason, so if we don\u2019t have enough people, we need to be responsible,\u201d said Campbell. <\/p>\n

Lack of responsibility in this context has consequences. Texas law requires that ballots be counted within 24 hours after polls close. If a county\u2019s results are not reported to the state within that window, party officials from that county could face a misdemeanor charge. They could also be subject to lawsuits from candidates contesting the results.<\/p>\n

But not everyone in the party shares Campbell\u2019s worries. David Treibs, a Republican precinct chair and vocal opponent of electronic tabulation, opposed the move to count the ballots electronically. He said he hasn\u2019t heard of any candidates on the ballot concerned about the hand count, and told Votebeat he\u2019s not worried about legal fallout if the count isn\u2019t done by the state-mandated deadline. <\/p>\n

\u201cNobody\u2019s gone to jail yet over this,\u201d Treibs said. \u201cI don\u2019t think anybody\u2019s going to sue either, unless they want to make an example out of this.\u201d <\/p>\n

He also rejected assertions that the party\u2019s recruitment efforts were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were on track\u201d to have enough workers, he told Votebeat. \u201cI believe strongly that that was not the real issue. They just wanted to flip us back to machines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each of the county\u2019s 13 precincts will need a minimum of three election workers to help supervise the polling location and help check in voters, and a minimum of three additional people to hand count the ballots. The county\u2019s two largest precincts would require between 3-5 teams of people to hand count. <\/p>\n

Triebs said he doesn\u2019t know how many workers the party has recruited. His precinct \u2014 precinct 13 \u2014 is fully staffed. But Triebs said it won\u2019t matter if they don\u2019t get the numbers they\u2019re expecting \u2014 they\u2019ll just take longer to count the ballots.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like they\u2019re going to shred all the ballots if we\u2019re not done on time. Of course not. That\u2019s ridiculous. That\u2019s not going to happen, \u201c Treibs said. \u201cThe ballots will be counted, so that\u2019s not the issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. Natalia is based in Corpus Christi. Contact her at ncontreras@votebeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[39578,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-170373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-0305-mc-pt-ii-gillespie-county-hand-count","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}