When Tony Carpenter, a resident of Tarrant County, went to vote at the White Settlement Library polling site, he expected his selections to be accurately reflected when the voting machine printed out his results.
But Carpenter says he encountered an issue. Although he insists he had selected former President Donald Trump as his choice, the printed ballot showed Vice President Kamala Harris instead.
“I went to the White Settlement Library to place my vote. Upon completing my ballot, I checked it on the voting machine monitor not once but twice before hitting the accept. All my selected candidates were correct. I hit the accept button and the paper ballot printed out,” Carpenter shared with The Dallas Express.
Carpenter then reported the incident to the election workers present at the site.
“As I checked that my selection for president had changed to the other candidate, I reported it to the staff controlling the poll. They took the ballot and gave me another one. They said they would destroy the first ballot, but they seemed to keep the bar code and only destroyed the text. The whole thing seemed a little out of control. They did not stop use of the machine I used to have it checked for mal functions,” Carpenter explained.
Tarrant County Republican Chairman Bo French was informed of the situation at the polling site and reported it to Tarrant County Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig.
“I was notified of reports that voters were experiencing problems. Reports were that people who selected Trump on the screen were seeing Harris on the printed ballot. This was reported to the Election Judge and in at least one case the voter was issued a new ballot to vote again. I immediately reported this to the TC Elections Administrator,” French posted on X.
French encouraged voters to double-check their ballots to ensure their selections were accurate.
In response to questions from The Dallas Express, Ludwig publicly explained what occurred in a press statement.
“In one reported instance, a voter reviewed their printed ballot and found it did not correctly reflect his choice for President. The original ballot was spoiled, and the voter re-marked a new ballot with his preferred choice reflected,” Ludwig said.
Ludwig’s statement left open the possibility for human error, where the voter thought he hit one button, but actually pressed another.
“Tarrant County’s voting system electronically marks a voter’s candidate selections and prints a final paper ballot for review before the ballot is cast. Tarrant County Elections highly encourages voters to confirm their selections on the physical paper ballot before placing it into the scanner to be counted. Tarrant County Elections has no reason to believe that votes are being switched by the voting system,” he added.
Ludwig, however, conceded a second issue has plagued some ballots.
“Tarrant County Elections has identified a labeling error for the office of ‘Presiding Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals’ on the printed paper ballot. The candidates are being correctly displayed on the screen and the printed ballot. However, ‘Presiding Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals’ is labeled as “Railroad Commissioner” on the paper ballot,” he said. “This labeling error will not affect the results of either the Railroad Commissioner or the Presiding Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals race.”
Ludwig said both of these matters have been reported to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office.