Gov. Gregg Abbott signed House Bill No. 1217 requiring counties to conduct early voting for 12 consecutive hours the last Saturday of early voting and six consecutive hours the last Sunday of early voting.
Hockley County election administrator Jody Rose explained that counties with a population of 55,000 or more have had to follow this bill for two years but is concerned for smaller counties like Hockley County that do not have large elections office staffs.
“In a smaller county such as Hockley County, we don’t have the staff that a larger populous county has,” Rose said. “We try to always have myself or one staff member here then we will have temporary poll workers during early voting, but it is getting harder and harder to find the poll workers. The state has put numerous laws in place and many of the poll workers are just not wanting to deal with it anymore and heard that many poll workers are even resigning because this bill has been signed.”
Rose said other election administrators have also contacted their Representatives to try to have the bill amended to protect small counties from financial crisis. Rose encourages citizens to contact Representative Jodey Arrington to voice the detrimental effects this bill could have.
“We still have a little bit of hope through special sessions if the governor will call a special session to work on election matters,” Rose said. “There are some election administrators, including myself, who have contacted our representatives and senators trying to get a fix put in place for this bill for the smaller counties. It’s truly an unfunded mandate and it’s detrimental to small counties, mainly the financial matter and being able to find workers because the state requires that you have three workers to work a polling location and sometimes that is impossible in this day and time.”
Rose has not been given the guidelines counties will have to follow during Saturday and Sunday early voting and expressed his experience with a small voter turn out for previous weekend voting.
“We’re hoping to get some guidelines from the state for exactly how it’s going to take place and how it’s going to be required to be implemented. We have not got any of that information yet from the Secretary of State’s office,” Rose said. “We will have a conference in August in Austin, and we expect that they will explain all of the bills to us, but right now this bill is the most detrimental to smaller counties. It will cause our budget to increase substantially for poll workers as we’re adding several hours. We were already doing nine consecutive hours Monday through Friday for two weeks on elections anyway and had the option for weekends, but in my experience and previously looking back, getting a turn out on Saturday voting even for your city and school elections. You have a hard time getting voters out on the Saturday, just so many activities going on.”
Hockley County registered voters over the age of 18 that are not convicted felons are able to apply to become a poll worker for early voting and Election Day. Rose said 2024 will be a busy election year with several elections already scheduled and anticipates needing more poll workers than normal.
“If you’re working early voting, we’re pretty flexible. We’re going to have many hours to fill in early voting so we can work with your schedule and even possibly we could work with some students if they’re 16 years of age or older,” Rose said. “We can work with the student if we have an adult present working the pole at the same time as a judge, then we can put a student as a poll worker.”
Rose explained the duties of poll workers and said the hours can be flexible for those working during early voting but are not as flexible on Election Day. Rose will begin preparing for the November election process in September and would like to have potential poll workers information by the end of August.
“They would use one of our county issued iPads that has our program that has all the registered voters logged in it. They basically pull up a registered voter by scanning a driver’s license and then the poll pad will lead them through all the questions to ask,” Rose said. “You basically verify the address and have the voter sign and then you issued their ballot to them from the check in table there and direct voters over to the voting booths to vote. If there’s a voter that needs assistance, you are able to read a ballot to them and mark the ballot exactly as they instruct.”
Hockley County registered voters are encouraged to contact Rose at the Hockley County election office at 911 Austin Street or at (806)-894-1105. Rose also briefly discussed the yearly reapplication process for mail in ballots.
“One important item to note, mail in ballots for voters who vote by mail in ballot you do have to reapply for those each year starting in January. So, if you have not applied for the 2023 year that would be why you didn’t get your May ballot,” Rose said. “You will need to apply in order to get a ballot for the November election. We have to have new applications on every mail in ballot each year. Deadlines for those applications will be right around the start of early voting for the November election.”