Harris Co. election issues caused by short staffing, malfunctioning machines, paper jams, Astros win

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Nearly two months after Election Day, Harris County released a report outlining what went wrong, and in it, leaders blame the Astros World Series win for why many places didn't open on time.

Issues emerged well before Election Day

This week, the Harris County Elections Administration released a post-election assessment on the 2022 midterms. The 54-page document outlines what happened from early voting, Election Day, and after Election Day.

During early voting, the report says some voting machines showed a "Controller not found" error message. This required technicians to respond to locations.

They also said paper jams caused issues with ballots, though the report does not say how many computers had issues or how many paper jams were caused.

Leaders also blamed the United States Postal Service for mail-in ballot problems. The county said it used a tracking system to see ballots moving through USPS.

The county learned ballots may not have been moving through the USPS system. So to fix the problem, the county spoke with USPS staff on a weekly basis about mail ballot delivery, return scanning, and postage cost.

The report doesn't show how many ballots got stuck with USPS, and on Election Day, the "Controller not found" error message continued.

The county also said it needed 6,500 staff members to handle the election, but only had 5,498. In addition, paper jams and lack of supplies were also allegedly an issue.

The report shows 68 Election Day voting locations ran out of paper, and 61 received additional deliveries.

As far as turning voters away because of paper, the report states, "Our investigation has not yet revealed how many of these voting centers had to turn voters away due to a paper shortage."

Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey has concerns with the report.

"I'm an engineer with 40-plus years of experience of doing reports, and if I turned that report in, and tried to get paid for it, I wouldn't be," Ramsey said.

Ramsey added that his concern is over the lack of specifics.

"It does not address the basics," Ramsey said. "The basics of why weren't polls open on time. The basics of why would you let certain polling locations run out of paper?"

County leaders also blame Astros World Series win for Election Day problems

On Election Day, some voting locations failed to open on time. The Harris County post-election assessment doesn't say how many locations opened late. However, it does place blame on the Astros, saying:

"Election Day voting did not proceed according to plan for 170 voting centers because of the celebratory World Series Parade. Several ISD's gave their staff the Monday off to participate in the parade. As a result, the presiding judges at those locations had to reschedule set up for Monday evening/night as opposed to Monday morning and for some locations set up occurred on Tuesday morning. This resulted in reports from several election judges that they were delayed in opening at 7:00am due to limited time to setup on Election Day."

"I don't even understand that," Ramsey explained. "So, you say the Astros impacted polling locations opening up? Well, do you have a telephone? Can you call someone?"

Several school districts, including Houston ISD, closed on Monday for the championship parade. The event started at 11 a.m. and was over by early afternoon. Because of the late opening at several locations and other problems, voting was extended an hour. It was later overturned.

SEE RELATED STORY: Votes in Harris County continue to be counted following problems and confusion on Election Day

Report lacks specifics on several issues because it places blame on Harris County Republican Party for getting involved

In its assessment in what went wrong, county leaders said they couldn't get answers from some workers and the report places blame on the Harris County Republican Party.

"During the post-election assessment, (Elections Administrator's Office) staff reviewed call logs and support tickets to gain an understanding of what occurred on Election Day. The EAO's recruiting and training staff conducted a calling assessment to all (polling judges and alternate judges). Although EOA staff was able to speak to most of the PJs and AJs, many of them provided confusing answers and some declined to speak after reportedly being advised not to do so by the Harris County Republican Party," the report said.

"We were not advising them not to," Harris County Republican Party Chairwoman Cindy Siegel said. "We said if they were going to speak to them that they needed to make sure they were clear in what they were reporting. and that if they could they could have someone else on the line with them."

County leaders said the Republican Party also played a role in delaying votes getting back to the main headquarters. To help get ballots from voting locations to the headquarters, the county offers a driver program. The report said, "The Harris County Republican Party advised that all of their presiding judges would not participate in the County driver program and would deliver their respective election returns to Central Count, although several of their presiding judges requested and received a driver."

Report outlines what the calls for help were from election workers

To help election workers with issues, the Elections Administration set up a help desk, which received more than 1,600 calls for assistance. Of those calls, 23% were related to issues with the voting machines, 8% were about supplies and ballot paper, and 9% were tied to worker procedural questions.

The report said county staff "takes all support ticket calls very seriously regardless of the nature of the call and endeavors to remedy the situation either by telephone support or dispatching a technician to support on site. During the election and after the election we review all support logs from the voting centers and look for trends. Once we identify an issue that is occurring at multiple locations or across the County, we discuss with the vendor and identify ways to resolve or correct an issue in real time, if possible or to identify if the matter requires a long-term solution."

What needs to happen in order to fix future elections

The report also outlines what needs to change in order to improve future elections. County leaders said they need to create a communications system because there is "no real visibility" to track a call for help, and when it's completed.

They said they want to hire more full-time staff, although it doesn't say how many more personnel is needed.

The Elections Administration also wants more resources and tools to fix voting machine issues when they arise. In addition, they want to evaluate election workers and determine how best to use them, as well as improve training.

Harris County Commissioner Adrian Garcia sent ABC13 the following statement about the report:

"What this thorough report reflects is while the election was not perfect, it was fair and free of any malfeasance or interference. No operation for an election with over one million voters can be perfect - however, that doesn't stop us from making perfection the goal. None of the errors changed the results of any race. If anything, these types of issues bubble up in counties all across the state of Texas and can be blamed on the state's lack of clarity. In some cases, the challenges are directly due to state leadership's confusing or misguided attempts at fixing a problem that doesn't exist."

"The elections office has identified 18 realistic steps to take to address the issues that arose. The steps include improving election worker training and a new evaluation system for election workers to ensure better quality, which will address some of the most grievous concerns that we saw in Precinct 2. I will actively be monitoring the progress of these improvements and pressing the EAO to implement these steps and I will be laser focused to support the office so that the process can be improved, assuming state leadership stays out of our way."

View the county's post-election assessment below. (If viewing on mobile, view the document here):

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