The Harris County Clerk’s Office can provide some answers to questions about the election process
To a curious mind, walking up to an election polling location can evoke a number of questions. While contemplating these issues can be confusing, the answers can be found by contacting the county clerk’s office.
The county clerk is the chief elections official for Harris County. Here are answers to some of the most common election day questions.
Who selects polling locations and why do these seem to change every election?
For general elections (November and May) and elections ordered by the county, polling locations are proposed by the county clerk to the four individual county commissioners and are then approved by Commissioners Court.
For all other elections, the entity conducting the election selects the polling locations. For example, in primary and primary runoff elections, the major political parties select and approve the polling locations.
How are the election day workers selected?
Every polling place is run by a presiding judge and alternate judge, one from the Democratic Party and one from the Republican Party. Both parties annually nominate individuals to work as early voting judges and clerks as well as judges and alternate judges for election day positions.
For general and county-ordered elections, the county clerk and commissioners court review lists to ensure the judges are eligible and we must appoint them unless there is an eligibility issue.
However, in the primary elections, the Commissioners Court does not appoint Election Day judges. Full responsibility for appointing election day judges lies with the parties, per Texas law. In primary elections, the parties are also responsible for training judges who work election day.
Why does it take so long to get results on election night? And w hat do they do with early voting results?
These two questions can be answered together. On election night, the polls close at 7 p.m. and anyone in line by 7 p.m. may vote. The county clerk posts early voting results shortly after 7 p.m., if the majority of the polls have closed.
But election day results are not posted until the election judge closes his or her poll, completes a considerable amount of paperwork required by law, packs up the equipment and drives to the drop-off location. Both judges print a complete list of results before leaving the poll, which they can later compare to results posted online.
Depending on when the last voter casts a ballot and how long it takes the judge to complete paper work, it may take anywhere from one, to more than three hours for the judge to deliver results to the drop-off location.
These judges were at the polls at 6 a.m. and most likely worked straight through to 8 p.m., or later and then had to deliver results to one of four drop-off locations.
Can my vote be hacked? Despite claims to the contrary, there are no documented cases of actual election tampering, or hacking involving electronic voting machines. By law, the voting equipment is never connected to the internet.
Every vote is recorded in three locations when cast. There has never been an instance where we, in Harris County, have not been able to recover a voter’s vote due to a power, hardware, or other related issue. There are many, many eyes from both parties on every step of the process.
We are working with county, state and federal officials, including Homeland Security and the Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center to ensure the cybersecurity of our networks and election infrastructure.
It takes a small army to run a major election in Harris County. In the last presidential election, there were close to 6,000 election day clerks working the polls with an additional 800-plus in various support roles.
We take the security of our voting systems very seriously and strive to safeguard the integrity of Harris County’s election process.