Outside the Beltway

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1. Scott says:
   Thursday, 26 February 2026 at 07:21

   Dumbasses run our rural counties:

   Eastland County Republicans scramble as hand-count of primary ballots looms

   Eastland County Republicans voted last fall to ditch electronic voting equipment and instead hand-count all of their primary ballots. They’ll be using paper poll books to check in voters, and expect voters to hand-mark their choices on paper ballots rather than using a ballot-marking device. And instead of having a joint primary with the Democrats, as they’ve done for years, Republicans have chosen to split everything: staff, equipment and materials. Democrats in the county are still planning to use the electronic voting equipment to cast and to tabulate their ballots.

   They are practicing:

   On Monday, a group of four people spent more than an hour at a table inside a Realtor’s office, hand-counting the results of two races on 100 sample ballots. It was only a week before Tuesday’s primary election, and for this small group, it was their first time practicing to tally votes by hand.

   They counted in batches of 25 and used different colored markers to keep track of where one counted batch ended and a new one began. They also used laminated tally sheets, which allowed them to erase and remark them if they made any errors. The group twice marked a vote for the wrong candidate, an error that meant they had to go back and start over and correct their laminated sheets.

   But on Election Day, “you won’t be able to erase the errors on the sheet. That’s why we practice,” said Robin Hayes, the county’s GOP chair, who was training the group.
   …
   After the group finished, Hayes reminded them that on Election Day, when there will be at least 41 races on the Republican primary ballot, they’ll have to minimize the chatter and focus on counting. “This was only two races. Remember that there’s more,” Hayes said.

   All this has happened before. All this will happen again.

   The only two counties planning to hand-count this year are Eastland and Gillespie. In 2024, Gillespie Republicans hand-counted more than 8,000 ballots. That endeavour took nearly 24 hours and led to errors in tallies that officials later had to fix. Gillespie Republicans this month scaled back their plans and said they will only hand-count ballots cast on Election Day because, officials said, they weren’t able to recruit enough workers to count ballots cast during early voting, which ends Friday.

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