Collin County could start using hand-marked paper ballots in a future election – but not this November.
The county currently uses voting machines to mark and count ballots. Collin County Judge Chris Hill proposed at a recent commissioners court meeting switching the county’s voting method to hand-marked paper ballots that are machine counted starting in the upcoming election.
“It's our turn for us to take our step in continuing to pursue election integrity here at home,” Hill said.
But that won’t happen in November. Hill’s proposal to make the change for the upcoming election failed to pass after the county commissioners refused to second his motion to do so. Instead, the commissioners elected to direct staff to look into using paper ballots in the future, including a potential bond election on the issue to let the voters decide.
Election fraud claims about the 2020 election have repeatedly been discredited. But members of the Collin County chapter of Citizens Defending Freedom, many of whom are also active in the local Republican Party, have spoken about election integrity concerns at Collin County commissioners’ court meetings for years.
The Texas Secretary of State’s Office has said Collin County’s elections are secure in its audit of the 2020 general election. The audit called Collin County “the model of how to run elections in Texas.”
Hill said he has faith in Collin County’s elections staff, but moving to hand-marked ballots would increase voters' confidence in the county's election integrity.
“We have to have a system that earns its own confidence, and hand marked paper ballots takes us in that direction,” Hill said.
State Senator Bob Hall, whose district includes a small portion of Collin County, was one of several speakers who shared support for paper ballots at commissioners court during a public comments session that lasted for over two hours. The senator said he plans to sponsor bills related to election integrity in the upcoming legislative session.
Hall said the current elections system in Texas lacks accountability and transparency. He said moving to paper ballots is the first step to fixing a broken elections system.
“Why in the world we spent $35,000 for a piece of electronic equipment to do what we know how to do, learned how to do in the third grade, and color within the lines?” Hall said.
But multiple commissioners shared concerns about the cost and logistics of switching to hand-marked paper ballots by November. Commissioner Susan Fletcher said staff estimated it would cost the county between $3.3 million to $4.2 million and take at least a year to implement.
“I'm not closed minded to talking about what to do for the future, but I think it is ill informed for us to do that today,” Fletcher said.
The commissioners approved the budget and tax rate for the upcoming fiscal year at the same meeting where Hill proposed the move to paper ballots. Hill voted against the property tax rate and budget, saying he was against raising taxes and the budget needed cuts. But the county judge voted in favor of several items individually that were added to the budget, including funding for 41 new detention officers at the jail.
Commissioner Darrell Hale said he voted for items added to the budget with the intention of supporting them. Hale also said there was little room for cuts in the proposed budget.
“There were so many things that we already left out of this year's budget that the county needs,” he said.
Hill said he was voting on the individual merits of the items added to the budget but was against the total cost of the budget. He suggested cutting staff raises to trim the budget. But Fletcher said the raises were necessary for staff retention.
“I want to pay our staff appropriately so that our staff doesn't turn around and use this as a training opportunity and go somewhere else to go get another job once they learn how to do that job here, because we don't pay them enough,” she said.
Got a tip? Email Caroline Love at clove@kera.org.
Caroline Love is a Report For America corps member for KERA News.
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