Dallas County is moving forward with rarely used "bloc voting" for the November midterm elections.
It may be the only Texas county offering that option.
Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins explained that bloc voting is permitted in a limited scenario.
"And the scenario is what we find ourselves in now," he said. "Bloc voting is allowed for unopposed candidates when those unopposed candidates being included individually would lead to the use of a second ballot or second card. That's what we have here."
Elections Administrator Paul Adams presented his preferred option to commissioners on Tuesday, though no court authorization vote is required.
The information was primarily intended to make commissioners aware of the state election code allowance.
Straight ticket voting — allowing voters to vote for all candidates along party lines at the same time — was officially eliminated from elections in 2020 by the state legislature and Gov. Greg Abbott.
There are at least 50 unopposed Democratic candidates among more than one hundred races and 6 propositions on Dallas County's Nov. 3 ballot.
Allowing an all or nothing voting option cuts down voter wait times and confusion, Adams said, because individually choosing each candidate takes longer.
He said it also takes three times longer for the machine to print a completed ballot where candidates are chosen one at a time rather than all at once.
The ES&S voting equipment used by the county allows individual votes or an all or nothing choice — not a mix of the two options.
Commissioner John Wiley Price wanted the public record to reflect that he opposes bloc voting because it could appear like voters approve of underperforming incumbents.
“You vote for all of them, or you go for none of them," he said. "That's basically the option on the table. I just don't think it's fair. They're going to get elected regardless. But they don't have to get it with that kind of validation."
Commissioner Elba Garcia said the elections department's decision likely was difficult and that she values a convenient, informed polling experience for voters.
"Both of my colleagues bring a good point," she said. "We always have been saying that you have to vote for the elected official that has a proven record of what you believe that person embodies for government."
Price said each person's vote should mean something.
"I can't sit here week after week and talk about people who are not performing and then you go give them your vote," he said. "I mean that's all you got. You're gonna give them your vote."
Adams said after review and communication with other counties throughout the state, no other will offer the straight ticket voting option.
"I have discovered, just within the last few weeks, that Dallas County has one of the largest possible ballots in the entire country," he said. "In conversation with our vendor, there are very few jurisdictions that ever have anywhere near the number of races that we would ever have on the ballot."
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