HOUSTON – The Harris County Clerk’s Office Elections Department is conducting logic and accuracy testing Monday on ballot machines in preparation for the November 7 joint general and special elections.
According to a news release, the elections staff will conduct a “mock election” at the Election Technology Center, where all possible combinations of ballots are manually voted on and then compared to control files.
The Texas Election Code requires this testing to verify that the voting equipment and ballots being used in the upcoming election accurately display the ballot, register choices, and tabulate the results correctly.
Representatives from both political parties are present and observe the entire process, the department said.
In a news conference Monday, Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth said there’s a total of 43 entities that have contest on the ballot, which include 14 state constitutional amendments and a county-wide proposition.
“Our diverse county is home to over 2.5 million registered voters and their ballots will have different contests, depending on where they are registered,” Hudspeth said. “Security is our top priority and our motto is always, ‘accuracy over speed.’”
“Last week, a lot of our employees spent much time with our entities, so each of those 43 entities come to our Election Technology Center, they look and review the ballot, the ballot language, the propositions on the ballot to ensure that they’re all accurate and complete, so that was a very big step in getting to the logic and accuracy tests this week,” Hudspeth continued. “So now, the teams that are here again are looking at every single one of those voting precinct documents and making sure they line up as we prepare for ballot by mail, early voting and election day.”
Starting next week, voters will have the chance to go to harrisvotes.com to see what contests and candidates will be on their ballot. Harris County residents can also call the election hotline at 713-755-6965.
The deadline to register to vote is October 10. Early voting begins on October 23 and ends on November 3.