Texas Republicans, Democrats Battle Over Who Is to Blame for 10,000 Uncounted Primary Ballots

Democrats and Republicans are each pointing at the other party over who is to blame for the 10,000 uncounted ballots from the 2022 Texas primary.

QUICK FACTS:
  • Harris County election officials have posed a number of reasons for 10,000 uncounted votes, with Republicans and Democrats at odds over who is to blame, according to The Washington Post.
  • Included in the list of possible reasons for the uncounted ballots were voting machines that failed to power up, poll workers not giving out the correct sized ballots and optical scanners that rejected some of the votes.
  • The Post reported that the Harris County primary, which consisted of around 360,000 votes, was an “error-riddled disaster.”
  • Democrats have said they think the problem is a new Republican-backed law that makes it harder to vote by mail and criminalizes election mistakes.
MORE FALLOUT FROM THE ELECTION:
  • A week after the election the county’s top elections official, Isabel Longoria, tendered her resignation, saying “we lost the faith of the voters,” according to Harris County News Online.
  • Republicans, however, are asking for an emergency hearing about Longoria’s replacement, following the news that her resignation wouldn’t take effect until July, KOU11 reported.
  • Democrats are looking for voters to renew their support for the process, however, with Chris Hollins—a Democrat who ran elections in Harris County in 2020 and now running to be Houston mayor—saying that “Politicizing our elections weakens faith in our democracy.”
  • “Instead of saying, ‘Great, the process works,’ the response is, ‘Look what happens when Democrats run a city.’ Or, ‘Look what happens when they change this law.’”
BACKGROUND:
  • Harris County, the home of Houston, Texas, is the third-most-populous county in the nation, and it’s an area that has been the epicenter for attempts to make election changes following the 2020 presidential election.
  • The GOP in Harris County’s suit claimed that they cannot take two more elections with Longoria, according to GOP Party Chairman Cindy Siegal.

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