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Electronic pollbooks glitched during the election. Now Dallas County needs a new vendor ASAP

Election Administrator Heider Garcia chats with someone during commissioner’s court Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, in Dallas.
Yfat Yossifor
/
KERA
Election Administrator Heider Garcia chats with someone during commissioner’s court Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, in Dallas.

Dallas County is searching for new digital tablets to check in voters during elections.

Commissioners must choose a vendor quickly, since the state decertified the devices that glitched during the November election.

The deadline for bid proposals from state-approved companies is January 31.

Elections administrator Heider Garcia says the five potential vendors would need 4,500 tablets ready to use, and be available to train workers on the system.

"We'll wait for next week, see if there are any responses, if there are, see what they say," he said. "And then we'll have to make that decision that week whether or not we're going to execute one of those. If there were one, at least one, that worked."

The current $2 million, 4-year contract with Election Systems and Software expires this summer, though it has been abated.

The software on some ES&S tablets had frozen and rebooted, causing voter check in problems in the last election.

Because of that, the Secretary of State decertified them for use.

They hope to get recertified by March.

County commissioners must decide by the first week of February to be ready for Spring elections.

Sticking with ES&S is also a choice, if the state certifies them in time.

"We can't go to May without a pollbook, so all options are on the table," Garcia said. "That's been my mantra since November."

Judd Ryan, ES&S sales senior vice president, spoke for seven other company representatives to accept accountability at an early January commissioners court meeting.

"We pride ourselves on good elections and we run good elections," Ryan said. "And, like anything else, nobody's perfect. We want to be here, take responsibility for what happened and try to fix it for them."

He told the commissioners court and elections administrator that the e-poll books software to blame can be fixed quickly, then recertified by the Secretary of State.

"We 100 percent want to continue with Dallas County," he said. "I think our development team will fix the issue, I think we will get certified, and if they vote to stay with us, I think we're going to have a great election with them in May."

County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins said if a new vendor is chosen the state offers a grant that could pay 80 percent of costs.

"We’re on top of it and trying to do the best we can in a bad situation," he said. "So we’ll see what the best option is for Dallas County voters."

The companies approved in Texas to provide electronic pollbooks for elections systems are ContentActive, Tenex, Votec, Knowink and VR Systems.

During voting for the November election, the ballot count at a DeSoto early voting location was off by almost 200 votes.

The screens on tablets that election clerks use to check in voters froze and rebooted.

Garcia said once they restarted, the electronic poll book possibly did not save the last voter as checked in.
 
Got a tip? Email Marina Trahan Martinez at mmartinez@kera.org. You can follow Marina at @HisGirlHildy.

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Marina Trahan Martinez is KERA's Dallas County government accountability reporter. She's a veteran journalist who has worked in the Dallas area for many years. Prior to coming to KERA, she was on The Dallas Morning News Watchdog investigative and accountability team with Dave Lieber. She has written for The New York Times since 2001, following the 9/11 attacks. Many of her stories for The Times focused on social justice and law enforcement, including Botham Jean's murder by a Dallas police officer and her subsequent trial, Atatiana Jefferson's shooting death by a Fort Worth police officer, and protests following George Floyd's murder. Marina was part of The News team that a Pulitzer finalist for coverage of the deadly ambush of Dallas police officers in 2016.