Hays County OK’s electronic poll books
By Megan Navarro SAN MARCOS — At its Tuesday, Jan. 28, meeting, the Hays County Commissioners Court unanimously approved a resolution supporting the Countywide Polling Place Program and using electronic poll books in future elections.
This resolution is to show support at the legislative level for the program and equipment that was adopted for use in Hays County. Some bills seek to eliminate the vote center program and de-ployment of electronic poll books, according to agenda documents.
Hays County has been participating in the Countywide Polling Place Program since 2019 and approximately 80% of the state’s voters cast ballots in the program, according to Elections Adminis-trator Jennifer Doinoff.
“Currently, 99 counties across the state participate in the program and 80%, if you can believe it, of the state’s voters vote in countywide polling. If you look at the counties that participate —Harris County, Dallas County, Tarrant, Bexar, Hildago, Cameron, Lubbock, Fort Bend, Collin, just to name a few — that is why it accounts for so many of the registered voters in the state,” Doinoff said. “This would be mass confusion to get rid of this polling place program throughout the state of Texas.”
The program is popular among voters because it allows them to cast their ballots at a location of their choice on Election Day: “We already do this all the other days of voting. This is one day we are talking about. If they commute from out of town on the way home, they can stop and vote without the risk of being too late getting to their home precinct and being able to cast that ballot,” Doinoff said.
Additionally, vote centers have become valuable during emergency situations. Doinoff pointed out that they become critical during different events, such as fires, floods, communication outages or a shelter in place at a school location if there was a shooter in the area.
“This allows us to be able to direct voters to other locations, where otherwise we may have to extend voting hours or redo an election if we had these issues,” she said.
Countywide polling also gives voters with disabilities the opportunity to utilize a polling area of their choice that accommodates their needs. For example, Doinoff said, when an election center has an awning that covers a vehicle, a voter with disabilities could go there if it were raining or if there were some elements that would make that a better place.
From the onset of this program, one of the biggest concerns that the general public had was that a vast majority of these counties that have gone to countywide polling have significantly reduced their number of polling locations, explained commissioner Walt Smith. However, he said, looking at the number of Hays County polling locations, there are “exponentially more.”
“We’ve actually added locations since we’ve gone [to] countywide [polling], which is a complete opposite of what the trend is statewide,” he said.
Two individuals spoke during the public comment period on this item, John Leonard and John Hatch, both of whom were in favor of the Countywide Polling Program resolution.
“In the November 2024 general election, more than 2000 provisional ballots were cast throughout Hays County. The vast majority, so nine out of 10, were not accepted because the voter was not registered in Hays County or not registered at all. Prior to the 2019 implementation of the county-wide vote center program, one of the leading reasons for provisional voting was that the voter did not vote in the voter’s home precinct,” Leonard shared. “As a result, most of those voters were disenfranchised, and the votes could not be counted. Mind you, those were properly registered Hays County voters of both parties. The countywide vote center program eliminated this issue and made the Election Day voting consistent with early voting when voters could vote at any polling location in the county. There is no good reason why this should change.”
The main reason why this program is important for Hays County is due to the population growth, according to Hatch.
“We have so many people moving into this county. Since I have been county chair, we have added, what, another 30 [or] 40 precincts in the polling locations. Those locations are constantly moving. The polling locations themselves are constantly changing. You used to vote at schools,” he said. “Schools no longer want you voting there. The issues like that. So, for the voter confusion of knowing where to go vote on Election Day, if not given the opportunity to vote at anywhere in the county, is a problem … As much as we would like to believe that all of our citizens live and work in Hays County, the fact of the matter is that they live not just in their precinct, but they work anywhere in Hays County. A lot of people work in Austin. A lot of people work going south. So, when they are coming home and they can't get to that polling place, back at their home precinct, that person leaving Austin can stop and vote in Buda, that person working in San Antonio can come vote in San Marcos. And all votes count.”
To read the full resolution, visit www. hayscountytx.gov. The Hays County Commissioners Court meets next on Feb. 11.
