Tarrant County commissioners recently approved a pay increase for election poll workers and judges.
Poll workers will now be paid $15, and election judges will get $18 an hour, reported The Texan.
Commissioner Alisa Simmons stated that she wished that the pay could have been higher and comparable to Dallas County, which pays its poll workers $18 an hour and elections judges $24.
The commissioners voted 2-2 against 50 submissions for early voting locations, meaning they did not get authorized.
“Our mission is to establish and increase public confidence in the electoral process by conducting voter registration and elections with the highest level of professional election standards, integrity, security, accuracy, and fairness,” the county’s website states.
“One of the most important functions of county government is to oversee the electoral process. The Elections Department has the responsibility of conducting all federal, state, and county elections and certain elections for municipalities, independent school districts, and other political subdivisions that contract with Tarrant County for election services,” the website continues.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Tarrant County deployed a new election software to allow people to view ballots and other data from past elections.
Last year, the Texas Legislature passed a law that requires counties to make some election documents available to the public.
The software that Tarrant County is using is called Ballot Verifier. It allows people to compare records side-by-side to ensure that ballots’ electronic and physical copies are a match, reported KERA News.
“Experience the future of election transparency with Ballot Verifier. Ballot Verifier proactively makes granular election data readily accessible online, eliminating barriers to transparency and freeing up time otherwise spent fielding public record requests,” reads the software company Civera’s website.
Civera developed Ballot Verifier.