Harris County officials explain delay in 10k ballot count

AUSTIN (KXAN) — On Wednesday, Texas lawmakers on the House Committee on Elections heard testimony regarding delays in election results from the March dominant.

In that election, Harris County encountered issues with counting ballots on time, including reporting more than 10,000 mail ballots days after election day.

The county’s elections administrator, Isabel Longoria, testified to lawmakers Wednesday part of the problem included overworked elections staff.

She said five election workers went to the hospital in a matter of three days and asked lawmakers to consider how they can help bring more resources to larger counties like Harris County.

She explained Harris County may continue to miss deadlines for reporting election results if current law isn’t changed.

Longoria, who in the spring announced plans to resign in July following March’s chaos, also pointed to headaches caused by the county switching to paper ballot system, which all counties will be required to do by the year 2026.

Longoria recommended lawmakers also consider a way for an elections administrator to request a court order from the Secretary of State’s Office directly when they notice a discrepancy in vote counts.

In the days following the March election, Longoria said her staff had to wait for a court order to be filed by either one of the parties or candidates before going by with counting the 10,000 ballots that were found late.

She clarified the votes found were in the room observed by a livestream, which is required with Senate Bill 1. They were just not transferred into the proper machine on time to be counted.

This is a developing story. Watch for the complete report tonight on KXAN at 6 p.m. by Maggie Glynn.