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Timeline: Inside Harris County’s history of delivering Election Day results

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It’s not uncommon for Harris County, the largest county in Texas, to experience some sort of delay in getting the final unofficial Election Day results from the election’s office.

In the State of Texas, all counties are required to report unofficial final results by a 7:00 p.m. deadline (or within 24 hours of polls closing on Election Night). In recent years, the latest reporting was nearly 7:00 a.m. But that’s still 12 hours shy of the deadline.

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KPRC2 Investigates put together a timeline of recent elections and events that led to these delays or in some cases, record reporting times.

Nov. 2, 2021 - Joint General and Special Elections

Final Unofficial Results Released: Approximately 5:54 a.m. · Nov. 3, 2021

In the most recent election in November, there was a power outage at the central counting location, delaying tabulations.

May 1, 2021: Joint Election

Final Unofficial Results Released: Approximately 12:21 a.m. · May 2, 2021

April 19, 2021: Early Voting for Joint Election

Early voting begins in Harris County ahead of the May 1, 2021 election day. New voting machines are introduced that offer a paper trail.

Nov. 3, 2020 General and Special Elections

Final Unofficial Results Released: 12:20 a.m. · Nov. 4, 2020

In the November 2020 General Election in which the presidential race was decided, the final unofficial results came in just after midnight at 12:20 a.m.

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Contributed to DocumentCloud by Click Houston (KPRC) • View document or read text

Nov 5, 2019 Joint General and Special Elections

Final Unofficial Results Released 7:00 a.m. · Nov. 6, 2019

In the November 2019 general election, Harris County experienced a 12-hour delay before the final unofficial results were released. Police officers were required to escort ballot boxes from more than 700 polling locations to a central counting station to be tallied. In previous years, the ballot boxes were sent to 10 counting locations and the tallies would be sent electronically.

12-hour delay: Harris County clerk says office resorted to natural disaster contingency plan on Election Night

May 4, 2019 Joint Election

May 4, 2019: 9:49 p.m.

First election in Harris County with the Countywide polling place program. According the Harris County Elections the voting centers reported in record time. The final unofficial results were released at 9:49 p.m.


About the Author
Debbie Strauss headshot

Award-winning broadcast journalist covering local, regional, national and international stories. Recognized in the industry for subject matter expertise including: Legal/Court Research, the Space Industry, Education, Environmental Issues, Underserved Populations and Data Visualization.

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