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By Jess Huff
The Texas Tribune
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A preliminary report from the Texas Secretary of State’s workplace discovered the Harris County’s 2022 election administration had “a number of failures” that would have prevented some voters from casting a poll, however the report stopped wanting suggesting the result of any race was affected.
The primary draft of the audit, which was launched Thursday afternoon, days earlier than early voting for constitutional amendments is ready to start out throughout the state, reaffirmed the county failed to provide its voting facilities with sufficient paper ballots. It additionally discovered its voter registration system listed 9,000 extra voters than had been recorded with the state and that 3,600 mail ballots had been despatched to voters that weren’t reported to the state.
The county — the nation’s third most populous — additionally didn’t adequately prepare election employees, the audit said.
“Harris County clearly had a number of failures conducting the election and violated election regulation for estimating wanted poll paper. Errors like these led to a poorly executed election which left many Harris County residents annoyed and will have prevented them from voting,” Secretary of State Jane Nelson stated in a press release. “You will need to speak about these points now to be able to tackle them earlier than the 2024 election cycle.”
Harris County officers declined to instantly remark.
Former Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum beforehand acknowledged there have been inadequate ballots at sure polling places and failures by the technical staff on the sphere.
The county’s mishandling of the 2022 election — which has confronted a number of lawsuits, a lot of them which have already been dropped or dismissed — sparked a sequence of legislative debates earlier this yr.
Amongst them, Republican lawmakers compelled the county to dissolve its just lately established elections administration workplace, splitting election duties among the many county clerk and tax assessor. The autumn election would be the first election for the reason that regulation took impact.
Harris County is suing the state to reverse the regulation. Oral arguments on the state Supreme Court docket are anticipated later this yr.
Nelson, in her assertion, stated she was grateful for the cooperation from Harris County officers and {that a} repeat of those issues “is unacceptable.”
Disclosure: Texas Secretary of State has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partly by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full listing of them right here.
This text initially appeared in The Texas Tribune.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and fascinating Texans on state politics and coverage. Be taught extra at texastribune.org.
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