Harris County completing final election day preparations
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas - Final preparations are underway in Harris County as election day nears.
Dozens of workers handed out equipment and other necessary materials to election judges at the 701 locations that will be open come Nov. 7.
"What you see here is just not full-time election employees," said Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth. "What you see here are county clerk employees who do other roles or handle other roles in our office who are also helping in elections. We’ve had temps that we’ve hired. We’ve had community partners that have said hey, I’ll make myself available to work. So this village is a huge village you know?"
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To pull it all off is a big undertaking, especially for Hudspeth who is overseeing an election for the very first time. "It is a big job to do, but I don’t want anyone to think I’m doing it on my own," she said.
She says she’s ready to correct some failures outlined in a Texas Secretary of State audit of the 2022 election, which included not enough ballot paper at some locations.
Hudspeth explained, "We over-allocated our paper measures so every voter should know that you will have paper to vote. That should not be a concern, and I have confidence that when you come to the polling place, we will be equipped and ready to serve you."
She also noted that every single polling site will now have an election technician to fix any possible equipment malfunctions.
"We did add a layer of assistance to the process," said Hudspeth. "We know that it’s a lot of work to get done for our election workers during the day, and it is really kind of hard to maybe deal with equipment issues or concerns of that nature."
And if there are any hiccups in the system, she’s confident the safeguards in place will prevent any long-term issues, adding, "Our teams have done every single thing we can possibly do to run a smooth election on Tuesday. There’s no such thing as a flawless election."
As a reminder if you’re looking to fulfill your civic duty come Tuesday, you’re able to vote at any location not just the one that’s closest to you.