The president\u2019s social media post drew surprise from Commissioners Court members during their Tuesday meeting, where County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins clarified Trump\u2019s message \u201cwas incorrect.\u201d It also prompted commissioners to share worries over the Republicans\u2019 plan if it advances.<\/p>\n
Breaking News<\/p>\n
By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n Although the plan would not apply to the Democratic primary, Republican hand counting would require voters of both parties to move to precinct-based voting centers on Election Day, requiring thousands more election workers and changing the universal voting location system in place since 2019.<\/p>\n Texas law also requires vote totals to be submitted to the state 24 hours after polls close on Election Day, creating a significant task for the GOP as more than 49,000 Republican ballots are expected to be cast that day alone.<\/p>\n \u201cThat will delay the results,\u201d Commissioner Elba Garcia said.<\/p>\n West, in a text message to The Dallas Morning News, said he could not explain where Trump\u2019s statement came from, adding he had not spoken to the president but appreciated the sentiment.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very supportive to have POTUS make a social media post on the effort,\u201d West said.<\/p>\n Allen West, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, speaks during a Don’t Steal the Vote rally in support of President Donald Trump in front of Dallas City Hall on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2020. (Juan Figueroa\/ The Dallas Morning News)<\/p>\n Juan Figueroa \/ Staff Photographer<\/p>\n Hand-counting is rare in the United States and mostly limited to jurisdictions with fewer than 1,000 voters, but it has been invoked in recent years, including by Trump, amid misinformation about the accuracy of voting machines. Research has shown time demands and risk of human error make hand-counting less reliable than machine tabulation.<\/p>\n \u201cHand counting is riddled with errors,\u201d said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director of Verified Voting, a nonprofit that tracks voting equipment and policy. \u201cIt\u2019s even harder when you\u2019re doing it county-wide with hundreds of ballot styles.\u201d<\/p>\n Roughly 200 Republican Party precinct chairs voted on Sept. 15 to explore hand counting paper ballots on the primary\u2019s Election Day after discussing their distrust of Dallas County\u2019s voting machines. But the plan is contingent upon securing sufficient staffing and funding to carry out the endeavor, according to the resolution.<\/p>\n Party member Stan Woodward said during the meeting the hand count effort would be capped at $500,000. On Tuesday, West said the current plan could cost up to that amount and require up to 3,300 people to work voting locations and count ballots on election night.<\/p>\n West, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, told the party in September: \u201cI never heard a soldier say, \u2018I can\u2019t.\u2019 They always said, \u2018This is what I can do,\u2019 and I think we need to have that same attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n The political parties in recent years have contracted with Dallas County to run its elections in a joint primary. The Republicans\u2019 hand-counted ballots would require a separate contract in which both parties use different equipment and election workers at the same voting locations.<\/p>\n Deputy Elections Administrator Malissa Kouba said elections officials and the party have been trying over the last several months to confirm logistics \u2013 like whether the county or Republicans would print the ballots and the voter check-in books, and who would supply the voting booths needed for hand-marked ballots. <\/p>\n She said they discussed having the Republicans provide an answer on whether they would proceed with hand counting by Thanksgiving, so a contract could be formalized. That didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n Democratic Party Chair Kardal Coleman said he is concerned about how the Republicans\u2019 plan to hand count the ballots will impact voters across the county, including Democrats. <\/p>\n Voters have been using county-wide voting centers since 2019, where they can cast a ballot at any location, no matter their address. The unknown costs of this endeavor on taxpayers also raise concern, he said. <\/p>\n The Secretary of State typically reimburses political parties for a portion of primary costs, like paying election workers and other expenses. But it\u2019s not clear how much Republicans will have to pay to cover the added expenses.<\/p>\n \u201cAt this point, we should not do anything that confuses the electorate and confuses voters in general, no matter what party you belong to,\u201d Coleman said. \u201cWe hope the Republican Party will come to their senses and do the right thing for Dallas.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump inaccurately announced in a Truth Social post early Tuesday that \u201cDallas County, Texas, just went…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,581,104,103,288,287],"class_list":{"0":"post-73545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-county","10":"tag-dallas-headlines","11":"tag-dallas-news","12":"tag-elections","13":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73545","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=73545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Allen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/G54ADRFCWBASJMAVT3SOOVRR4A.JPG\")
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