The Gillespie County Republican Party will be hand counting the results from their upcoming primary. Last year their County Executive Committee voted to use paper ballots and the Texas Chapter 65 hand count method for their primary elections this year. I sat in on one of their training sessions on Jan. 16th and was very impressed with their organization and commitment to election integrity. They came up with a different tally form (approved by the SOS) and use the echo tally system, which ensures that all 3 tally markers have the same counts. A four-person tally team with one or more watcher looking over the caller’s shoulder yields 100% accuracy. See the short video clip below for an idea on how the Echo method works. I also included a photo of one page of the tally sheets that match with their sample election ballots, which have 37 races on a single sheet of paper using both sides. They count ballots in batches of 50 ballots and have found that it takes a team one hour to count 50 ballots. Not bad for 37 races! They are training more than enough volunteers to enable them to complete the hand count on Election Day within an hour or two of polls closing.
One of six tally sheets used to count the 38 races that appeared on each ballot shown above.
I wish the Gillespie County Republican Party complete success in hand counting their ballots. Perhaps with their success, we may have better luck convincing our Commissioners Court to hand count ballots for the November general elections.
Post Primary Election Update:
The Gillespie County Republican Party (GCRP) successfully completed a hand count of ~8,000 ballots all on Election Day! Each ballot had 38 races, which means that ~300,000 votes were counted by hand by the end of the day! Results appeared on the county website by 5 a.m., well before the deadline for reporting by Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. If the Gillespie County Elections Administrator had not delayed the hand count start by 3-4 hours, counting could have been completed by 9:00 pm. The GCRP used 50, five-person teams (>275 volunteers, including students) to get the job done. Once started, the processes went smoothly and yielded excellent and accurate results.
To all those who say hand counting isn’t possible or isn’t accurate, the GCRP just proved you wrong!
Good morning Kerr County!
I’m Rebecca Bruns, Medina County GOP Chair of Election Integrity. And, Pct Chair 1A.
My first question: does your County have a ‘Contract’ with your Elections Administrator for processing Elections?
Here in Medina County we do.
FYI: myself and Whitney Riley attended an ECHO65 Method training session last year with Jeannette and her team!
Rebecca,
In Kerr County, we do not have an elections administrator. Elections are handled by our County Clerk and her staff.
Rich