November 15, 2018 600 AM
FAR WEST TEXAS – The Gina Ortiz Jones campaign continues the work to have every vote counted a week after the election. The Texas Secretary of State Election Division still reports U.S. Rep. Hurd, R-San Antonio, with 102,903 votes, or 49.11 percent, to Ortiz Jones’ 102,214 votes, or 48.78 percent, a slim edge for Hurd of 689 votes. The focus for the Ortiz campaign has been ensuring all provisional ballots are verified and counted. Provisional ballots are used when you claim to be an eligible voter, but your name does not appear on the list of registered voters and the voter registrar cannot determine your registration. Those who cast provisional ballots are allowed six days from election day to return to visit the voter registrar’s office and cure their ballot, which means they would need to present an secretary of state-deemed acceptable form of photo ID or comply with an alternate option to justify provisional ballot should be counted. The Ortiz campaign had been working with counties to ensure the list of names for those that cast provisional ballots is released, which is considered public information. According to the campaign “…not everyone that cast this type of ballot may know that they did, and that they have to go in and verify the ballot.” According to a representative for the campaign, most counties have released the provisional ballot names, but Bexar County refused to do so. A judge ruled on Monday that Bexar County should release the names; however, the county administrator didn’t comply with this mandate.
Following Bexar County’s refusal to release the names, the Ortiz campaign had requested a 48-hour extension for voters to verify their ballots, but the extension was denied.
Locally, the Presidio County Election Board voted Friday to validate two straight ticket Democrat provisional ballots that will go to Ortiz. The ballots were received after Election Day, but post marked on Election Day.
The deadline to cure the provisional ballots ended on Tuesday the 13th at 5 p.m., and for military ballots at 7 p.m.
So what’s next? It’s now up to each county to determine which provisional ballots will be counted, they have 7-13 days after the election to do so.
According to Texas Secretary of State’s office, “. . . the registrar should conduct whatever research is necessary to determine whether the voter is or should have been registered in the precinct in which the voter cast the provisional ballot and will pass this information on to the ballot board to assist it in making the decision of whether the provisional ballot must be counted. Provisional voters will receive a notice in the mail by the 10th day after [this determination is made] advising them if their provisional ballots were counted, and if they were not counted, the reason why.”
If the provisional ballot count does not change the results of the election, the Ortiz campaign may still request a recount, though they had not done so as of Wednesday evening. According to Texas Secretary of State, the deadline to request a recount is two days following certification of all votes.
Ortiz is fewer than 700 votes away from Hurd’s lead, so the results are within the margin to request a recount. According to the Texas Tribune, “… under Texas law, the difference in votes between the two candidates must be less than 10 percent of the winner’s total votes — in this case, about 10,000” in order to request a recount.
In addition to issues concerning the validation of provisional ballots, the Ortiz campaign continues to vigilantly seek out other voting irregularities in counties across Texas.
After the Medina County’s ballot board meeting on Tuesday the Ortiz campaign asserts, “No board members were permitted to sign or question the board’s review of election results because the machines were zeroed out before the members arrived. It is standard practice for these board members to zero out machines, and sign off on results, but—this time—they weren’t given the opportunity to do so by the elections administrator. This action further calls into question the vote tabulation in Medina County. On the night of the election, after it had already submitted its results to the Secretary of State’s office, Medina County changed totals from one precinct—the change gave Rep. Will Hurd a slight lead in this race.”
“Our goal from the beginning has been to ensure every eligible voter has their vote counted. Clearly, something is amiss in Medina County and due diligence must be done to make sure their vote count is correct,” Gina Ortiz Jones said. “Whether it’s Medina County’s early voting totals being called into question or the machines being zeroed out before officials could verify results, there are serious and concerning questions about this election. These questions need to be answered before anyone moves forward.”
With as narrow a margin required to win this seat, and all of the vote validation issues that continue, it’s hard not to imagine how the outcome would be impacted if voter engagement was increased. Presidio County alone could have turned the results. The county only saw 33 percent of eligible voters going to the polls (1,588 votes of the 4,884 registered voters).
