Nearly 50 polls understaffed on Texas Primary Election Day, new data shows

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — Almost 50 polling places had been understaffed on Texas Main election day, forcing some voters to go elsewhere to solid their ballots, in keeping with newly launched information obtained by KHOU 11 Investigates.

Not like a joint major the place political events share election staff, the March 1 election was a break up major, requiring every political social gathering to employees their very own machines and operations.

Every of the 375 polling places in Harris County is meant to have a minimal of three election staff from every social gathering—a decide, an alternate decide and a minimum of one clerk.

In response to an open information request, the Harris County Elections Administrator’s Workplace recognized 49 polling places that didn’t have sufficient election staff, together with 16 vacant polls with zero staff. 

Republicans made up 76% of the understaffed places with Democrats accounting for the remaining 24%, in keeping with the info.

“The locations the place the events had been unable to recruit sufficient election judges on Election Day, what you noticed was frustration from voters,” Harris County Election Administrator Isabel Longoria stated.

Longoria stated at some places on election day, each events agreed to assist one another cowl staffing shortfalls and open voting machines. Somewhere else, she stated events weren’t prepared to cooperate and people voters had been instructed to go to a different location to solid their poll.

“What we noticed actually was voter frustration of eager to go to a selected location or being confused as to why one facet was open, however the different facet wasn’t,” Longoria stated.

Nonetheless, the Harris County Republican Occasion blamed the election administrator’s workplace for its half in scheduling staff the place wanted.

“They’re being disingenuous, they’re not telling the reality of what went on,” Harris County Republican Occasion Chair Cindy Siegel stated.

Harris County GOP desires unbiased administrator to supervise subsequent election as an alternative of Isabel Longoria

Siegel stated previous to election day, each events and county officers had been utilizing a shared on-line desk to maintain monitor of election staff and places. However she claimed that county officers didn’t sustain with that shared doc and disorganization resulted in overbooking some places whereas leaving others understaffed or vacant.   

“I stated, ‘you might have double booked folks in places we have already assigned folks and now we have them able to work,’” Siegel stated. “And if they might have moved them, we’d have greater than sufficient folks than we wanted, and so they did not do this.”

The county’s personal information present the GOP had some 1,930 election staff signed up. A lot to cowl all polling places throughout the county.

“There was nothing went proper, nothing went proper,” Siegel stated.

Harris Co. elections administrator submits resignation after points with major

Different election day issues led to the resignation of election administrator Isabel Longoria, efficient in July. The GOP has since sued Harris County for breach of contract and is demanding unbiased oversight of the election course of.

A spokesperson for the Harris County Democratic Occasion stated most of the staffing points might have been prevented if Republicans had agreed to a joint major and shared key election personnel, which Democrats absolutely supported.

“With the impacts of SB1 and continued COVID fears, a joint major made sense, however the GOP wouldn’t assist that,” Democratic Occasion spokesperson Elisa Rochford stated.

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