The Tarrant County Elections Administration is currently conducting a post-election hand count audit of the Texas Senate District 9 runoff held on January 31, as officials work to verify the accuracy of electronic vote tabulation following concerns raised during pre-election testing.
According to Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig, the audit is intended to reinforce trust in the county’s voting system.
“The hand count audit provides an opportunity to bolster the public’s confidence in the electronic balloting system that the county uses,” Ludwig said.
The audit comes after issues were identified during logic and accuracy testing for both the Senate runoff and the upcoming March primary election. During testing for the Senate race, officials scanned 72 test ballots using a central ballot scanner typically reserved for mail-in ballots. Because the Elections Administration produces these test ballots themselves, they are able to compare expected outcomes with machine results.
In that test, one ballot was rejected. When the stack was run again, the same issue occurred. After isolating the ballot and scanning it individually, the correct result was obtained.
A separate test conducted for the primary election revealed what appeared to be physical interference affecting results. Debris on one ballot and possibly a strand of hair on another were believed to have caused tabulation inconsistencies. One affidavit noted that debris on the scanner lens may also have contributed to the issue and would likely have been caught during manual review.
“This highlights the importance of manual adjudication of questioned ballots between scanning and tally,” a witness wrote. “And the testing board will adjust our policies accordingly.”
Ludwig acknowledged that the Elections Administration had fallen behind on routine cleaning and maintenance of some central ballot scanners following continuous in-person voting since October. He explained that small particles such as lint or debris can interfere with vote tallies but may also cause ballot rejection or machine jams.
All central scanners have since been cleaned in preparation for the March primary, and Ludwig emphasized that no similar issues have been reported with polling place machines used by voters to cast ballots.
While expressing confidence in the county’s election systems, Ludwig said that any testing anomalies are treated seriously and documented. Affidavits related to the testing concerns were forwarded to the Tarrant County Election Integrity Task Force.
In response, Ludwig sought permission from the Texas Secretary of State to conduct the hand count audit.
“To ensure the integrity of election results, Section 127.201 of the Texas Election Code mandates a Post-Election Hand Count Audit. This manual review of paper ballots verifies the accuracy of electronic voting systems,” the Secretary of State’s guide explains. “By confirming that the machines tabulated votes correctly, the Post-Election Hand Count Audit provides crucial assurance to both local election officials and the public, building confidence in the outcome.”
Members of a bipartisan ballot board are now manually reviewing nearly 100,000 ballots. Ludwig reported that the process is about halfway complete and that results have matched electronic tallies so far. The audit must be finalized by February 21.
Ludwig also addressed broader concerns about voting machine software integrity. He noted that systems are certified by both federal and state authorities and are verified through hash values, which serve as unique identifiers for software.
“A hash is a mathematical function that creates a unique string of letters and numbers that identifies a system and its programming,” according to the Secretary of State. “A specific hashing algorithm will always create the same string, allowing vendors and elections officials to compare hash values and confirm that the voting system and its source code has not been altered.”
Election experts continue to debate the relative strengths of machine versus manual counting. The Bipartisan Policy Center has stated that tabulators improve the accuracy and efficiency of election administration, citing research indicating lower error rates than hand counts.
Chuck DeVore of the Texas Public Policy Foundation similarly noted, “Paper ballots may seem like a safeguard against fraud, but they introduce a greater risk of human error in counting. The monotonous, repetitive task of hand-counting millions of ballots can easily lead to mistakes. Machines, by contrast, are designed to handle this process efficiently and with far fewer errors. Machines do fail — or can be programmed incorrectly — but proper testing under trained, bipartisan observation catches most problems.”
The audit follows a closely watched runoff election in which Democrat Taylor Rehmet prevailed with 57 percent of the vote, a 14-point margin in a Republican-leaning district. The race was held to fill the seat vacated by former state Sen. Kelly Hancock after he was appointed Acting Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts by Gov. Greg Abbott.
Rehmet, an aircraft technician at Lockheed Martin and union president, defeated Republican activist Wambsganss despite being outspent by her campaign and supporting political action committees. Wambsganss previously served as chief communications officer for Patriot Mobile and has worked in real estate and broadcast journalism.
Rehmet will hold the seat until November, when voters will again decide the contest in the general election. The outcome could carry broader political implications, as Democrats view the district as part of a wider effort to regain ground in Tarrant County and across Texas.
