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<\/p>\nSteve Evans\u00a0suffered the same frustration as other\u00a0Lubbock-area\u00a0voters\u00a0Monday morning. Evans,\u00a0a\u00a0former local Republican chair,\u00a0tried to vote\u00a0at\u00a0the 114th\u00a0Street and Slide Road\u00a0United\u00a0Supermarket\u00a0early\u00a0voting\u00a0location.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI walk into a mess, a feeding frenzy of angry people,\u201d Evans said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t getting better as\u00a0he waited.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI finally just hollered, \u2018Hey! Yo, people, calm down!\u2019 I didn\u2019t even know what the problem was yet. \u2026 We got all those people ushered out of the way and I looked at [the assistant election judge] and said, \u2018Honey, what is going on?\u2019\u201d Evans said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Evans explained\u00a0to her\u00a0who he was and how he had previous experience with elections.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe hands me a piece of paper and immediately I\u00a0feel it.\u00a0It\u2019s too damn thick. It\u2019s thicker than normal,\u00a0and it has kind of\u00a0a waxy\u00a0surface on the back,\u201d Evans said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He tested it and it would not work on any of the machines.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
So,\u00a0it must have been a bad batch of paper, right?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s\u00a0what Lubbock County\u00a0Elections Administrator Roxzine Stinson thought.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went and pulled\u00a0out\u00a0the old\u00a0paper\u00a0and we were still having the same issue,\u201d Stinson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The problem remained a mystery Monday evening when Stinson spoke to LubbockLights.com.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some voting machines are working. Others failed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Emergency voting\u00a0<\/p>\n
A press release Monday afternoon said, \u201cWe are using emergency ballot procedures.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Six early voting locations were open\u00a0and\u00a0running normally\u00a0Monday\u00a0\u2013 as listed in the press release.\u00a0Stinson described the procedure for\u00a0the remaining\u00a0locations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou will vote on an emergency ballot, which is a yellow sample ballot,\u201d Stinson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those yellow ballots came back to\u00a0the elections office under guard from sheriff\u2019s deputies and kept secure until the early voting ballot board can count them, Stinson said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
No one votes Tuesday \u2013\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0a holiday\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stinson\u2019s office gets\u00a0a\u00a0one-day reprieve from the problem.\u00a0Tuesday (April 21) is San Jacinto Day in Texas.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t take this wrong or anything,\u00a0but I am so grateful that it is [a state holiday],\u201d Stinson said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not voting on San Jacinto Day was always the plan.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPraise God for that, but it gives us some time to try to figure out what is going on because, we have done everything we know to do,\u201d Stinson said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
To make up for Monday, Stinson is seeing if the local cities\u00a0and schools would like her to extend voting hours for some of the remaining days of early voting.\u00a0She plans to send out an updated press release when the\u00a0extended hours are finalized.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anyone with questions or concerns\u00a0can\u00a0call the elections office at 806-775-1338.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the time Stinson spoke with LubbockLights.com late Monday afternoon, 361 people had checked in at the polls.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asked\u00a0if\u00a0voters\u00a0were unpleasant with the poll\u00a0workers, Stinson\u00a0said,\u00a0\u201cIf they have, my poll workers have not said anything.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The investigation\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stinson\u2019s staff even pulled out older voter machines from storage and tried them. But they\u00a0weren\u2019t\u00a0doing any better.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHart InterCivic is our vendor. They sent someone here. They have been through everything.\u00a0They\u2019ve\u00a0been on the phone with the engineers and\u00a0stuff\u00a0and they absolutely cannot figure out why\u00a0when\u00a0some of the equipment\u2019s working and some of\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0not,\u201d\u00a0Stinson said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\t\tRoxzine Stinson. Credit: Staff Photo.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have pulled some of the equipment that we\u2019re having issues\u00a0with\u00a0and we are overnighting it to our vendor to their office, and they\u2019re going to have an engineer look at it and see if they can figure out what\u2019s causing it,\u201d Stinson said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u00a0verified\u00a0the software is correct, Stinson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cables were replaced. Machines were restarted.\u00a0Old paper versus new paper was tested.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, we know it\u2019s not the paper,\u201d Stinson said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBumfuzzled is about the best word I can use,\u201d Stinson said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stinson said the voting machines are from 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re supposed to be good for 10 to 12 years,\u201d Stinson said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there was a\u00a0foreshadowing\u00a0that something was wrong.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
A hint of trouble\u00a0<\/p>\n
Current Lubbock County Republican Chair David Bruegel was at the elections office for ballot testing about a week ago.\u00a0He needed to double check names and other details for the March Primary Runoff\u00a0(May 26\u00a0with early voting May 18-22).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was having an experience\u00a0with the machine \u2018paper-jamming\u2019 at the time. I thought that it was just specific to that machine needing its wheels cleaned or something,\u201d\u00a0Bruegel said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
He brought it up to the election staff. They thought the same thing \u2013 just trouble on one machine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just told it was just that particular machine that needed maintenance,\u201d Bruegel said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat confuses me is we used the same machines in the primary and didn\u2019t have the same issue,\u201d Bruegel said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stinson said the same thing having run an election just days ago\u00a0for a\u00a0local school district with no trouble.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
And when her\u00a0staff tested things for the May 2 election,\u00a0everything worked.\u00a0But Stinson said she had a bad feeling.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tested it again.\u00a0We just retested this election last\u00a0week because \u2013 I just \u2013 something\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0sitting right with me. \u2026 Let\u2019s look at it again. And we did, and everything was working,\u201d Stinson said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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