Texans began early voting on October 22 and already there are reports of problems at the polls.
According to Texas news station ABC13, voters of both parties are complaining about having their ballots mis-marked by voting machines.
What’s even more surprising is that this problem isn’t new. Secretary of State Rolando Pablos has known about the issue for years and has done nothing to fix the problem. He’s calling it operator error.
Houston voter Mickey Blake reported the problem as she tried to vote a straight Democrat ticket. On the last screen, she noticed a vote that should have been for Beto O’Rourke was marked for Ted Cruz.
The rest of her straight Democrat votes were correct except for the senate race: “So she backed up and did it again. And again,” according to ABC13.
She reported the same results after the third time trying to correct her ballot.
Republicans had a different result: “Voters who select straight-party Republican unselect Sen. Cruz and wind up voting for no one. Either way, officials say it’s a rare issue that happens, but not to everyone,” according to ABC13.
In August, The Texas Tribune published an op-ed by Democrat Celia Israel who said Texans have known about the problems with voting technology and have been calling for improvements to the outdated system for years.
“In many of our counties, it’s like we are driving a 15-year-old vehicle down the highway that was meant to last no more than 10 years; it will leave us stranded if we don’t act quickly. We need a plan to find funding to replace voting machines and infrastructure that is more than a decade old. We cannot allow our counties to continue using antiquated voting systems in a state full of technological talent and innovation. We cannot afford for our voter rolls to be compromised or our machines to fail,” said Israel.
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