Dallas residents urged the commissioners court to postpone the certification of the November 8 election votes and move to a paper system at its Tuesday meeting after election officials from multiple Dallas County locations reported exaggerated and inaccurate voter numbers from poll pads.
Multiple witnesses claimed to have seen the tabulators and poll books malfunctioning for hours. They later noticed that tabulated numbers were exceeding what was counted initially.
A.J. Mass, an alternate judge at the Exall Park Recreation Center, said at the meeting that her polling location had one tabulator and five poll books.
The total number of voters at her location on November 8 was 857, she said, but after the location closed, the five poll books reportedly showed numbers totaling over 2,000 voters.
“We then were put on notice that other locations were experiencing the same issue,” she said at Tuesday’s meeting. “As the numbers rose, one clerk noticed that there were mysterious voter names in the computer that she did not record onto the roster.”
The footage was captured of poll numbers and ballot numbers reportedly in Dallas County polling locations rapidly shifting.
Cindy Stairs, another alternate judge, described the events she witnessed as chaotic in comparison to her experience as a poll watcher in 2020.
“Total chaos in Central Count. I could not believe the change. I could track the boxes, the votes, and the thumb drives, to the downloads two years ago,” she said. “This time, there was no traceability.”
Multiple officials claimed similar results, claiming electronically tallied voter numbers vastly exceeding numbers recorded by onsite staff manually.
Deborah Waters, a polling clerk at the polling place at University Park at United Methodist Church, said she witnessed voter machine failures and poll books randomly jumping between voter numbers after the election closed after 7 p.m.
Waters also claimed her location was one of at least nine known to be experiencing the same issues.
After similar issues were encountered in Harris County, Governor Greg Abbott announced in a press release that the county would undergo an investigation.
“The allegations of election improprieties in our state’s largest county may result from anything ranging from malfeasance to blatant criminal conduct,” said Abbott in the release.
“Voters in Harris County deserve to know what happened. Integrity in the election process is essential,” he stated. “To achieve that standard, a thorough investigation is warranted.”
Dallas County voters had 452 polling sites to choose from on Election Day, according to the Dallas County Elections Office.
“A rise in just 1,000 votes undetected at each location could be the difference of an excess of 400,000 votes or ballots being issued across the county with no voter verification or registry log to back them up,” Waters said.
“Every citizen of Dallas County deserves to know that these numbers have been checked against official voter registry logs and not dismissed as a computer glitch,” Waters said. “This is a non-partisan issue.”
Dallas County Commissioners did not certify the election at their meeting on Tuesday.