Time crunch for Jones’ push on votes Deadline nears for provisional ballots in House race
Democratic congressional candidate Gina Ortiz Jones’ clash with county and state election officials over provisional ballots that could decide her race will reach its deadline today — and a group of prominent Democrats are now backing her up.
At issue is the final vote count in Congressional District 23, where Jones trails incumbent Republican Will Hurd by more than 1,000 votes. Jones wants to see a list of voters in Bexar County who cast provisional votes so the campaign can encourage them to “cure” their ballots, or correct them to ensure they’re counted.
The deadline is 5 p.m. today. “The clock is ticking, and we’re working hard so that all voters can stand up and be heard,” Jones said.
The Hurd-Jones race is one of a handful across the country — most significantly in Florida — that are still undecided a week after the midterm elections.
The Hurd campaign has called his lead “insurmountable” and declared victory.
Jones said her campaign filed public records requests Wednesday for the lists in all 29 counties of the district. The campaign said 18 have complied with the request, including large counties such as El Paso and Maverick.
Several prominent San Antonio Democrats — including former Housing and Urban Development Secretary and Mayor Julián Castro and his brother, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro — aligned themselves behind Jones and chastised Bexar County’s handling of the matter.
Releasing the list “will facilitate opportunities to inform eligible voters of their rights and ensure that they have ample opportunity to cure their ballots or otherwise ensure they are counted,” the Democrats wrote in a letter to county commissioners.
Election officials shot back, arguing that the release of the lists would be illegal and the notifica-
tion to voters redundant.
Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen has said she can’t legally release the list before the county’s early voting ballot board — a small, bipartisan group charged with reviewing provisional and mail-in ballots — completes its work.
The lists become public records after the review, according to election law.
Jones said other counties have complied with her requests. The Texas secretary of state’s office said that might be because their ballot boards are already done with their reviews. Bexar County accounts for more than half the district’s votes.
“They’re beating me up,” Callanen said Friday after Jones staffers implored her to release the list at a Commissioners Court meeting. “They’re asking me to break the law, and I won’t do it.”
Callanen declined to comment Monday, saying she had the day off because of the Veterans Day holiday.
The secretary of state’s office has supported her claims. Keith Ingram, the state election director, said the office precisely changed its rules in 2014 to forbid what Jones is trying to do.
The new rule came after campaigns wanted the provisional voter list in Williamson County after a 2014 judicial race was decided by 12 votes, Ingram said. The county granted their request.
The secretary of state’s office thought the list should have been withheld, and it changed its rules to forbid release of the voter lists until ballot boards finish their work.
Secretary of State spokesman Sam Taylor said “our agency’s rule ensures that voters are not bothered by campaigns after the election.”
Voters who cast provisional ballots because they did not meet ID requirements — the only votes that can be cured by voters — are given a notice at the polls with instructions, the deadline and a map to their county registrar’s office.
“Any additional ‘notice’ from a campaign would be redundant and potentially confusing to voters,” Taylor said.
The Jones campaign said it has not received an official response from Bexar County authorities regarding its request. The state attorney general’s office, which rules on public records disputes, did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
The small margin in the race has elections officials in the district’s 29 counties furiously trying to tally outstanding ballots that were not included in figures from the election last Tuesday. Those include the provisional ballots, mail or “absentee” ballots, which were accepted until 5 p.m. Wednesday, and military and overseas ballots, which can arrive through today.
For the most part, the task of reviewing those votes falls to each county’s early voting ballot board.
At least 850 such votes are outstanding in the district, according to elections officials in 17 of the district’s 29 counties that provided numbers to the San Antonio Express-News. Those counties made up about 90 percent of the vote Tuesday. It remains unclear how many of the votes will ultimately count.
Bexar County officials last week released the results of 446 votes the county had tallied since Tuesday. Jones gained a net 70 votes, bringing the margin to 1,080 votes.
County Judge Nelson Wolff, a Democrat, also supported Callanen. He said he spoke with Secretary of State Rolando Pablos early Monday about the concerns the Democrats raised in their letter.
“The state sets the legislation, the secretary of the state sets the rules, we have to carry it out,” Wolff said. “To the best of my knowledge, Jacque has followed the law.”
All ballots will be received by today. The official result may not be known until the first week of December.
“Our agency’s rule ensures that voters are not bothered by campaigns after the election.” Secretary of State spokesman Sam Taylor