FORT BEND COUNTY, Texas – Fort Bend County voters are demanding answers after a voting system issue during Tuesday’s runoff election temporarily prevented some people from casting ballots.
PREVIOUS REPORT: Fort Bend County voting centers restored after hours long delay due to bug in check-in systems
Recommended Videos
County election officials said the issue lasted about two hours and affected polling locations across the county.
During the outage, some voters were incorrectly told they were ineligible to vote — despite already participating in the primary election and qualifying for the runoff.
Rice University political science professor Mark Jones said the issue was not typical.
“For a couple of hours across Fort Bend County, voters were unable to cast the ballot,” Jones said.
What caused the problem?
According to Jones, the issue appears to have stemmed from a clerical mistake involving voter data files used in the countywide voting system.
“From what I understand, there was a clerical error made in terms of uploading the wrong file which caused this issue,” Jones said.
Jones explained that because Fort Bend County uses countywide vote centers — allowing voters to cast ballots at any polling location — the system relies on interconnected voter data being updated correctly across all machines.
Fort Bend County Democratic Party General Counsel Dylan Russell described the problem as an issue involving voter roll updates that required machines to be manually corrected across the county.
“Apparently there was some software that needed to be updated with the voter rolls,” Russell said.
“They had to go to every single voter location in Fort Bend County and update all of the machines that have that voter roll data,” Russell said.
Some close races could still be impacted
While most races were decided by comfortable margins, Jones said a few close local contests could still be affected depending on the number of provisional ballots cast during the outage.
He specifically pointed to:
- The Democratic primary for Precinct 4 County Commissioner
- The Democratic primary for County Clerk
“For the precinct four county commissioner primary on the Democratic side, and for the county clerk primary on the Democratic side, this in theory could have had an effect,” Jones said.
Voters who were unable to check in normally were often instructed to cast provisional ballots instead.
Why voting hours were not extended
At one point during the outage, Democratic and Republican party leaders discussed asking a judge to extend voting hours beyond the 7 p.m. deadline.
However, they ultimately decided against it due to concerns that votes cast during an extended period could later be invalidated through court action.
Russell said the decision was influenced by a recent case in Dallas County, where a judge extended voting hours but those ballots were later challenged and segregated during legal proceedings initiated at the state level.
“We decided, rather than make people believe that they were going to cast valid votes after the 7 p.m. cutoff, that we would not do that,” Russell said.
He said the goal was to avoid creating confusion for voters or encouraging people to vote under an extension that might later be overturned.
Questions about accountability and election safeguards
The incident has now raised broader concerns about voter confidence and whether enough safeguards were in place to prevent a countywide disruption.
Jones said the problem appears to have been caused by human error.
“Clearly one person made an error and as a result, the system shut down for a period of a couple of hours,” Jones said.
He also warned that a similar issue during November’s general election could have far greater consequences.
“This definitely undermines voter confidence in the overall electoral process,” Jones said.
Jones said another failure during a high-turnout partisan election could quickly become politicized and trigger legal disputes.
Election administrator has not responded
KPRC 2 News reporter Joy Addison repeatedly attempted to contact Fort Bend County Elections Administrator Chase Wilson throughout the day.
Calls and emails seeking clarification went unanswered. KPRC 2 also went in person to the Fort Bend County Elections Administration office and was told Wilson “wasn’t here” and “hasn’t had time” to speak.
Specific questions sent included:
- What caused the issue?
- How many voters may have been affected?
- When election officials became aware of the problem?
- What steps were taken to correct it?
- Whether officials are concerned about impacts on voter participation or election results?
- What safeguards will be implemented before November’s election?
As of Tuesday evening, no response had been provided.
Concerns ahead of November
Election experts warn the implications of Tuesday’s disruption extend beyond a single runoff election.
Jones said that while this issue occurred during a lower-turnout primary runoff, a similar breakdown during November’s general election could carry much larger consequences for both election outcomes and public trust.
“If it happens in November in a partisan election, it’s almost destined to result in some type of legal conflict, as well as become politicized,” Jones said.