Texas County Enacts “Emergency Paper Ballots” After “Software Glitch” In Voting Machines

Just yesterday we noted several social media complaints from Texas voters who alleged that when they voted a straight republican ticket that voting machines were switching their presidential selection to Clinton/Kaine.  While most undoubtedly dismissed these reports as conspiracy theories, new official reports from Chambers County, Texas suggest that there might be some truth to the voting machine “irregularities”.  According to an NBC affiliate, polling stations in Chambers County had to enact emergency protocols yesterday and revert back to paper ballots
after a “glitch” was discovered in the county’s voting
machines.

The issue was actually discovered on Monday morning when Chambers County Clerk Heather Hawthorne was casting her own ballot and the voter next to her noticed that one of her votes was not filled in when she reviewed her electronic ballot  Hawthorne told 12News on Tuesday.

An error in the voting machine programming by Election Systems & Software (ES&S) caused votes for one statewide court of appeals race not to be entered when a voter tried to vote straight ticket in either party according to a release from Chambers County.

ES&S is the vendor that Chambers County contracts with to program their voting machines.

The Texas Secretary of State’s office informed Hawthorne to create emergency paper ballots to continue voting until the problem could be fixed according to the release.

Below is the official press release from the Chambers County Clerk:

Of course, these confirmed reports from Chambers County seem eerily similar to problems reported yesterday on social media from people who also experienced problems when voting a “straight republican ticket.”

The following report also surfaced in Arlington, Texas from a person who voted a straight republican ticket only to find just before submitting her ballot that her presidential choice had been switched to Clinton/Kaine.  After reporting the error to polling officials, the voter was told that these errors “had been happening.”

This Reddit user also noted multiple reports of voting errors across the state of Texas.

Of course, the real question is how many people submitted erroneous ballots before this “glitch” was caught and how many other “software glitches” exist in other counties around the country that will never be caught?