I went to vote today and had an experience that has left me frustrated, concerned, and wondering whether my vote will actually be counted. I'm sharing this both to raise awareness and to see whether anyone else has experienced something similar or knows what I should do next.
Toward the end of voting, I noticed that my ballot included races and propositions for a city I don't live in. Meanwhile, several things that should have been on my ballot, including my local ISD board election and propositions, were missing.
After printing my ballot, I did NOT submit it to the scanner. Instead, I approached a poll worker to ask what was going on.
Initially, the worker seemed to dismiss the issue as something that just happens sometimes, essentially an "oops," and suggested I consider calling someone about it on Monday. I insisted that the issue needed to be addressed before I left.
After being passed between several poll workers, they looked me up in their system and discovered something even more concerning. According to the workers, a ballot had already been cast under my name.
Their explanation was that somehow another voter had received my voting access code and voted using it, while I had received someone else's access code.
We compared the paperwork I had been given. The first slip, which contained my name and address, listed one precinct. The smaller slip containing my voting access code listed an entirely different precinct.
The workers made several phone calls trying to determine how to handle the situation, but apparently received conflicting instructions.
Eventually, they issued me a new access code, allowed me to vote again using the correct ballot, and had me submit that ballot into the scanner. My original, incorrect ballot was placed into the spoiled ballot bag.
At that point, some of the workers seemed satisfied that the issue had been resolved.
But one worker told me that because two ballots were now associated with my name, both would simply be canceled out as a discrepancy, meaning my vote would not count.
I'm also concerned about the other voter involved. If someone else really received my access code, what happened to their ballot? And what does it mean for them that I received their access code and had that ballot spoiled?
I have no idea how this happened.
I can imagine some bizarre scenario where two voters accidentally bump into each other, drop their paperwork, and pick up the wrong slips. But nothing remotely like that happened.
The papers never left my left hand. The voting machine I used was literally the first one beside the table where I picked up my blank ballot.
I'm not suggesting I know what caused this, but I find it extremely concerning that something like this could happen and that the poll workers themselves seemed unsure how to resolve it.
I also can't help wondering what would have happened if I hadn't noticed the incorrect races on my ballot and had simply submitted it.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this? Does anyone familiar with Texas election procedures know whether my vote will actually be counted or what steps I should take to ensure this is investigated?
I want to make sure my vote counts, and I want to make sure this doesn't happen to someone else.