Nearly 2,000 Democratic Party ballots cast between 7 and 9 p.m. on Election Day have been set aside for Dallas County officials to review.
The Texas Supreme Court will now decide which — if any — of those votes count after ordering the separation. The high court is also deciding if polls were legally allowed to stay open.
A local judge had ordered them to stay open later because of confusion over new voting rules.
Whether those votes get counted in results depends on the Supreme Court's final ruling.
"I'm not sure that there are enough provisional ballots to reverse the outcomes of any race, but I do believe that those voices should be heard and those ballots should be counted," Democratic Party Chair Kardal Coleman said.
State law requires counties to reject or accept provisional ballots within six days of an election, which is by the end of business hours Monday, March 9.
But that could shift, said county Elections Administrator Paul Adams.
"Courts can for various reasons, establish deadlines, pass deadlines, alter deadlines,” he said. “So, I don't know.”
The number of voters turned away in the confusion who then didn't cast a ballot may never be known, Adams added.
"There's maybe some ways we can get some possible information, but we won't really ever know for sure," he said.
The Democratic Party is electronically surveying voters about whether they were able to vote amid precinct-assignment confusion.
Voters reported to KERA and county officials as well as on social media that at several locations some exhausted and some confused election judges refused to accept more voters after 7 p.m.
"We sent out a message via our e-poll book system to every poll pad in the entire county so that they would have seen the message. And just like you, we had received reports that judges said, 'Nope, I'm done. This has been a long day. We're wrapping this up. It's been hard enough for us,' " Adams said.
Elections officials tried to out to the judges after they heard about that and told them they needed to comply.
"But there's only so much we can do when they've already packed up," Adams said. "By the time we would have sent somebody out there, they...would've closed everything down.
"Logistically, how can I reopen multiple locations where judges have decided to close in the midst of everything else that was going on?" he said. It was just completely overwhelming to our operations here."
Adams said elections judges should not have just left.
"They should not just leave like that. You have to abide by the court order," he said.
He added that there potentially be consequences for people who left and "did not fulfill the order."
Still, this primary election set a record for highest voter turnout, with 26 percent of more than 1.4 million registered voters casting ballots.
That surpassed 2018, when early voting high set a record at 16 percent.
Anticipating high turnout based on early voting data for this primary, some staff worked 36 hours straight starting Election Day. Some worked through weekend to transition from early vote centers to Election Day polling places and ensure correct voting equipment arrived and functioned at respective Democrat or Republican only locations.
That effort was not enough to avoid confusion, which is why extending voting hours was necessary, said Coleman, the Democratic chair.
"We had plenty of time to reverse course and plenty of times in negotiations with the Republican Party for them to not lead us to this decision," he said. "So we have to place the blame exactly where it's supposed to be. And that's with the Republican Party and their failed leadership."
Republican Party Chair Allen West said the Supreme Court pausing after-hours voting was the right decision.
"This whole thing about the Democrats being confused — I think that was a very weak excuse to do what they did," he said. "There was, I think, a contractual obligation violation, and so I think that's what they saw."
He said the Democratic Party filed for extended voting hours with Judge Staci Williams before consulting the elections department legal counsel.
Confusion about where people go to vote will not be an issue in the November general election, Adams said, because the county has authority over those elections.
Democratic and Republican parties have legal authority over how to hold their respective Primary Election Day.
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