By Andy Sevilla

Six votes pushed Buda council incumbent Bobby Lane to victory on Election Night, according to the unofficial results, but now, his challenger says uncounted ballots may give him the edge needed to win the seat.

After relentless issues plagued the polls during Buda’s Nov. 4 election — problems frustrating enough to reportedly send voters home without casting a ballot — Lane’s opponent in the Place 6 council seat, Greg Henry, said the race still hasn’t been finalized. 

Hays County Elections Administrator Joyce Cowan said 39 provisional ballots have yet to be determined. With only six votes deciding the Place 6 council race, the outcome could still be in the air. 

Cowan said the county’s election board will begin researching the provisional ballots Wednesday. 

Provisional ballots are submitted when, for example, voters don’t have an acceptable form of identification or perhaps their current address or name on their ID doesn’t match the voter rolls. 

Those individuals are allowed to vote on a provisional ballot. But, within six days after the election, they must then provide sufficient proof to their county elections office to allow their vote to be counted in the final tally.

“The majority of provisionals do not count,” Cowan said, adding that often times voters are registered in different counties or they vote outside of their precincts. 

But provisional ballots were not the only issues Buda voters faced on Nov. 4. Other precincts in Hays County also experienced hiccups on Election Day, including power outages at Wallace Middle School in Kyle and at three locations in San Marcos.

Reports of dozens of Buda voters leaving the polls surfaced since the election, largely due to complications at the polling locations.

Buda started with six electronic machines at city hall on Election Day, but only one was functioning between 7-8 a.m., forcing some voters to leave the voter line and head to work. But despite the complication, 66 voters still cast a ballot within the first hour at Buda City Hall, Cowan said.

All six machines were working about an hour after the polls opened, she confirmed.

Buda Mayor Todd Ruge said he heard that as many as three-dozen voters left the poll between 7-8 a.m., though he said he didn’t witness the alleged exodus, and is unaware if any of those voters may have returned to the poll at a later time.

As the evening progressed, and with all voter machines working, voter lines at city hall continued to stack up prompting Hays County Commissioner Mark Jones to request two additional voter machines to city hall. Once officials attempted to connect those machines to the system, all malfunctioned, leaving Buda voters without the chance to cast a ballot for about an hour.

“At one point, six of the six machines were down… that hurt tremendously,” Henry said. “I watched several of my voters walk away with frustration.”

Lane said some of his neighbors also left the polls before voting.

Election officials in Buda requested paper ballots from San Marcos, but the electronic machines began working shortly after those ballots arrived at Buda City Hall, Ruge said.

A third issue in Buda stemmed from voters attempting to cast a ballot at city hall, only to find out that those machines were for Precinct 224. Henry said many voters of Precinct 228 attempted to cast a ballot at city hall only to be turned away after standing in line for more than an hour, he said. 

Precinct 228 voters were to cast ballots at Tom Green Elementary. During early voting, Hays County residents were able to cast a vote at any polling location.

Information on voter precincts is available on the Hays County government website.

Henry said the sign identifying Buda City Hall as a voting place for only Pct. 224 was small and got lost amongst all the political signage that is common along Main Street. 

“It was frustrating, because there were people that left before voting,” Henry said. “One, because they were in the wrong precinct, or two because they were there for two-plus hours.”

Said Ruge, “When I was there that evening, there were people that dropped out… There were several people that I saw leave.”

Jones said Cowan is scheduled to submit a full report to the Commissioners Court explaining the Election Day shortfalls, identifying the problems and solutions, and suggestions to prevent future complications.

Among the future alleviations, Hays County voting centers are being proposed throughout the county, Jones said.

The May 2015 election may be the first to feature the voting centers where the electorate, independent of their prescribed precinct, may show up and vote, Jones said. 

In Buda, anyone who was in line prior to 7 p.m. was able to vote. The last voter cast a ballot just before 9:30 p.m., almost two-and-a-half hours after polls closed.