The Dallas County Commissioners Court was briefed during its Tuesday meeting on preparations for this year’s joint primary election, including the number of polling locations that have been arranged and changes in poll book connectivity.
This year’s election will feature co-judges rather than the traditional judge and alternates. Voters are nonetheless expected to have a similar voting experience, according to the presentation by the Dallas County Elections Department.
Commissioner John Wiley Price said in the meeting that the county has experienced previous issues with having co-judges, noting that the process has not historically been smooth in practice.
“There are people who feel as though they can invade certain communities, and they come in like gangbusters, and some of our judges are just not gonna have it,” said Price.
Heider Garcia, elections administrator for Dallas County, assured Price that any election worker, clerk, or judge who disrupts the election process will be removed during early voting and that personnel have been trained to put voters first.
County Judge Clay Jenkins said that he hopes a great deal of young adults vote in the primaries and advocated that word be spread on how best they can participate. Commissioner Price noted that many local youth do not have the identification needed to vote, such as a driver’s license.
Price also noted that the number of voters has always been lower than the county’s overall population.
“There are 1,800,000 people in Dallas County who are 18 years of age and older. We got 1,400,000 registered to vote. We’ve never had more than 900,000 people vote,” said Price.
“I’m trying to make sure we get access for those individuals who will vote,” said Price.
There will be 63 early voting locations across the county, three of which have been changed from the original plan. The Balch Springs Civic Center has been replaced with the Balch Springs Recreation Center, the Glenn Heights Family Center with Glenn Heights City Hall, and the MLK Jr. Recreation Center with the MLK Branch Library.
Election Day will have 450 locations, six of which have also been changed from the original plan.
Commissioners were also briefed on connectivity issues at locations, with teams concluding that issues seen in the last election were caused by a lack of updates to firmware and not a difference between 4G and 5G connections.
“We dropped the ball,” Price said in the meeting.
To address the issue, the elections office has implemented a short-term solution to upgrade existing devices to the latest protocols and firmware to make all devices “uniform” while “maximizing” connection use and upgrading to 5G devices with the most current cybersecurity measures in the long term.
Garcia explained that the long-term solution could be implemented in three to five years and that the “tech refresh” could start with buying about 150 new devices per year rather than all at once.
“We’re not there yet, but we have to start planning for that,” said Garcia.
The presentation also addressed payroll issues experienced last year, which resulted in some workers not getting paid, including those handling elections. This issue has been traced to the platform being used as well as procedural and administration issues.
“It’s not that we didn’t know who worked and we didn’t pay them; it’s that this new platform we switched to had a procedure that had a lot more intricacies than we thought about and resulted in people basically saying that: ‘bottom line is I don’t have my money,’” said Garcia.
To keep from repeating this issue, the county has set up direct deposit as an option for workers and all payment options will be set up before or after training.
Employees and contractors are also asked to call the office if they experience issues. However, commissioners agreed that election workers who experience payroll issues must have a direct line of contact to remedy the situation, noting that some workers had refused to return due to such issues.
Commissioner Elba Garcia noted a feeling of “helplessness” when these workers contacted them and they were unable to help.
“That feeling of helplessness, Mr. Garcia, is something that [makes] you go: ‘Who is in charge over there?’” said Commissioner Garcia.
Garcia said that the main point of contact for issues would be the voting site teams since they will have the needed documentation.
