{"id":327326,"date":"2026-06-08T10:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T10:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/327326\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T10:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T10:08:07","slug":"as-midterm-preparations-heat-up-texas-will-get-a-new-chief-election-official","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/327326\/","title":{"rendered":"As midterm preparations heat up, Texas will get a new chief election official"},"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

Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson\u2019s unexpected departure<\/a> only a few months before the November midterm election, which includes one of the most hotly contested U.S. Senate races<\/a> the state has seen in years, has some local election officials and voting rights advocates worrying the transition will complicate their ability to administer a smooth election.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the unknown, the uncertainty that is scary,\u201d said Tandi Smith, the Kaufman County elections administrator. \u201cAre we going to continue to receive guidance? Are we going to be ensured that we\u2019ll be prepared for any coming changes? We just don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, is required by law to appoint a new secretary as soon as possible. His office, in an emailed statement, said the new appointee would be announced \u201cat a later date.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nelson, who has been the state\u2019s chief election official for more than three years, last week announced that she\u2019d be stepping down from the role effective July 17. Nelson\u2019s departure will happen just as election officials across the state are preparing in earnest for the November general election. In the summer months, they\u2019ll be recruiting election workers, seeking polling locations, and processing voter registration applications, among other duties.<\/p>\n

Some voting rights advocates say a new appointee may want to direct local election officials to change election procedures, which could lead to chaos and confusion for voters. Although the secretary of state\u2019s office has no law enforcement authority and can\u2019t change the law, it can issue election law opinions on how to implement election and voting rules. <\/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

\u201cIf the new secretary of state has a laundry list of demands that election administrators can\u2019t meet, that\u2019s going to throw our elections into disarray,\u201d said Emily Eby French, policy director at Common Cause Texas. French noted that there were three secretaries of state between 2017 and Nelson\u2019s appointment in 2023, some of whom remained in the role only for about a year before resigning. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am very concerned that we are going to go back to that period of instability that we were in before Jane Nelson,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

In the months leading up to the March primary election, county election officials across the state navigated challenges including a rare mid-decade residistricting cycle<\/a> and issues with the statewide election management and voter registration system<\/a>, known as TEAM. The majority of counties in the state rely on the system, which was overhauled last summer by the secretary of state\u2019s office, to manage elections and to maintain voter registration lists. <\/p>\n

The Texas Association of County Election Officials has twice publicly asked<\/a> Nelson\u2019s office in the past six months to act and resolve the problems. The secretary of state\u2019s office has said that problems with a new version of the system were expected, especially given that the system handles the data of more than 18 million voter registration records. They\u2019ve also said the situation was aggravated by the unexpected midcycle redistricting and problems with an outside vendor that forced some counties to suddenly add large amounts of data to the state system with little warning. <\/p>\n

But despite these tensions, state election officials have consistently remained supportive of local election officials through politically tense periods and have maintained a nonpartisan approach when interpreting the law, said Chris McGinn, the executive director of the Texas Association of County Election Officials. <\/p>\n

The agency has also often promoted the idea that county election officials are the election experts in each of their communities. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a fear that that could change to where the office is dictating how counties should operate with a more political approach,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Others, including some local election officials, are less concerned about top-down interference and say that a leadership transition in the office now won\u2019t affect election officials\u2019 ability to conduct a smooth election in November. That\u2019s because ultimately, the election is handled by local officials in each of the state\u2019s 254 counties. <\/p>\n

Nelson\u2019s sudden departure \u201cshouldn\u2019t have any noticeable impact on the ability of the election officials in Texas to run free and fair elections,\u201d said Joshua Ferrer, an assistant professor of government at American University. Ferrer has done research on the recent heightened turnover of state and local election officials across the country<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cEven when officials leave, the replacements, and the staff that are still there are able to do an equally good job,\u201d Ferrer said. <\/p>\n

Smith, the Kaufman County elections administrator, said she\u2019d like to see the incoming secretary of state advocate for more funding and resources for county election departments. <\/p>\n

\u201cFunding is something we\u2019ve talked about for years,\u201d Smith said, recalling when a tornado touched down in the North Texas county during the 2024 primary runoff election and her office had to scramble to ensure polling locations stayed open. \u201cWe want to be able to provide secure facilities for our voters and to make sure that there are no delays when there are storms of that nature, but funds are limited.\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":327327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[116975,37672,27,29,28,116974,19681],"class_list":["post-327326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-brazos-county-election-administrator-office-on-election-day","tag-bryan","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-vb","tag-votebeat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327326","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=327326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}