In another so-called “accidental” error favoring Democrats, Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth revealed on Monday that early voting turnout figures in Texas’ Harris County could be incorrect due to a “formatting issue” with the tracking spreadsheet.
The news has sparked outrage from Republicans, who see this as yet another in a long series of convenient glitches and accidents that seem to lean in one political direction.
Joseph L. Trahan, a candidate for Senate District 15, took to social media platform X to air his grievances.
He wrote:
“Harris County Central Count must have some kind of secret teleportation device they used to remove 2000 to 3000 voters a day from HCC South Loop and moved them to Kashmere every day of early voting after the fact. THIS is merely one of many astounding feats overcoming the limitations of time and space, physics, Rodney Ellis’ team has been able to achieve.
Me, my team and other candidates worked HCC Southloop many days of the early voting period. For instance, Wednesday we know for a fact we passed out 1000 campaign buttons to voters that exited the polling location with a “I Voted” sticker, many of which we had spoken with as they were entering the polling location.
Wednesday Oct 30 at HCC 610 loop easily 2,500 voters entered that voting center by all accounts and this morning Harris County Central Count adjusted that number to 711?
Over 60 daily totals shifted from heavy “Republican” polling locations to heavy “Democrat” polling locations.
We want answers.
Left Totals at polls closing Friday evening and these numbers lasted online until the morning where the image at right shifted 60 different daily totals as indicated entirely inconsistent with first hand on site witnesses at these polling locations.”
Caroline Kane, who is a candidate to represent Texas’ 7th Congressional District, also wrote on X:
“In Harris County, there are now huge discrepancies in early voters by polling location between yesterday and what is now showing today. These should NOT CHANGE, yet 60 polling locations have indeed changed.
The beginning of the list and end of alphabetical list are all nearly the same. The entire middle of the report is off. Look at “HCC West Loop South,” for instance. Where did the votes go? Perhaps some went to “Samuel Matthews Park Community Center”?
I check these numbers daily to check traffic and assign volunteers for the following day. All was consistent day-to-day until today -when everything changed. What is going on here [Office of County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth]?”
In response to the backlash, Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth released a statement explaining that a formatting error had allegedly misaligned certain cells in the spreadsheet, causing totals to appear incorrectly across several polling locations.
“In the process of updating the daily record of early vote totals for two vote centers (Baytown Community Center and Mission Bend Center), the formatting of the spreadsheet inadvertently misaligned, causing cells to shift and reflect incorrect numbers for other locations. Our office is aware and is actively working to correct the report.
A gentle reminder, as stated in red at the bottom of the early vote total report, the numbers of early voters by personal appearance are UNOFFICIAL until all administrative documents collected from each voting center are reviewed and reconciled in accordance with the Texas Election Code (TEC). I assure you that every vote that was cast will be accurately tallied.”
