Harris County clerk talks about Election Day

Election Day. What happened, right? Those weeks and days just went by very quickly. And here we are well after 10 o'clock and more than 83,000 voters here in Harris County have cast their ballots in the midterm election. Again, today is election day, the final and last opportunity to cast your ballot in the midterm elections. Voters will vote on everything from our statewide races all the way way down to your most local races here in Texas. And it is important to know there are 600 623 total voting centers today, 623 voting centers across Harris County, more than enough voting centers for voters to make their selection, whether it's where a location where you work near where you work, a location where you drop the kids off at school. If you're like my child, he's actually out. He gets a day out on election day. Um, or if it's near where you go and shop 623 locations, you can go absolutely anywhere. I keep people saying the precinct in which you're registered We stopped voting by precinct in 2019, so voters can go absolutely anywhere in Harris County. If you're in another political subdivision, you'll have to vote in that jurisdiction. The polls close at 7 o'clock p.m. today. Last opportunity, 7 p.m. today. As long as voters are in line by 7 p.m., you will have the opportunity to cast your ballot. Now, 7 p.m. does not mean parking and running from the parking lot. It means physically at the door. At 7 p.m. so that voters, so that the election workers can designate that you were at the door by 7 p.m. If you vote by mail, if you vote by mail and you have that ballot by mail in hand, you have two options. One is to take your actual ballot by mail to the only drop-off location, which is downtown at 1019 Congress. 1019 Congress, there is a tent that signifies you can bring your ballot by mail. You will still have to show photo ID when you go to that one drop-off location. Or you can take your mail ballot to any voting center today, surrender that mail ballot, and cast a regular ballot. Again, if you are ballot by mail, Voter, and you have your ballot in hand, today would be a great time to drop off at 1019 Congress or go to a vote center to vote a regular ballot. If you did not receive your ballot by mail, I've said this before, I'm the county clerk of elections, not of the U.S. postal system. So if it did not arrive, we encourage you to go vote today. If you're unable to leave your car, sick or disabled, you can vote curbside. Every single one of those 623 vote centers have a curbside option. You will have to sign an oath. Thank you. You can also download Harris Votes on your mobile device, anywhere you get your mobile store and your apps. You can go to Harris Votes there. You can even check the wait time features. Right now, we have had a steady flow of voters since 7 o'clock a.m. If it's green, means go. Yellow means, you know, a little bit of traffic. Red is there is probably a line. And I know how much you all like to stand in line. Sometimes they have a party at the polls. But you really do have 623 locations to choose from. Again, HarrisVotes.com. As you're making your plan, also take your time to study your sample ballot. Every Harris County voter, on average, will have more than 100 contests to vote on from the top all the way down to the bottom. So check your sample ballot out. You can print that out. Any written materials can be brought into the polling location with you. Again, written materials, not your cellular device or any recording device with written materials on the phone, right? So any sample ballots, written materials. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Absolutely anywhere is where you can go today. At the start of the morning, we had one location out of 623 that was not ready on time. It has been addressed. They have been voting voters. And again, I've always said this is not a flawless process, but we work very hard. And when you have people involved, there can sometimes be delays. Again, one vote center out of 623 that was not ready to go right at 7 o'clock a.m., but have been voting voters. And we have addressed those concerns there at that polling location. Are there any questions? Yes, that was the Baker Ripley Community Center at Gulfton. Baker Ripley Community Center at Gulfton. Yes, sir. Well, we're getting real lucky right now because the weather is beautiful. We've been watching the weather to see if there's going to be rain to come in. We still continue to move forward, right? We don't know what the weather will bring, but we are prepared. We even sent ponchos out to our election workers at every single location to be prepared for curbside voters or to make sure they can get in and out of the building. But Harris County, please continue to give us good weather through the rest of this day. Yes, sir. Yes, provisional voting. First of all, voters need to know there are seven qualifying IDs that you should have when you show up to vote. One of those is a driver's license. The other is a personal ID card, handgun license, military ID, election ID, citizenship certificate or U.S. passport. They must all have photo IDs. If you don't have one of those documents, you can fill out what is called a reasonable impediment form and offer up other items. A main reason someone could have to receive a provisional ballot. Could be a plethora of things, something with their voter registration. Maybe they received a mail ballot or a mail ballot was sent to them, but they've not received it in hand to surrender. So, again, check to make sure you're registered to vote. The goal is to vote a regular ballot. If you have to vote a provisional, you will go ahead and be processed the provisional and you find out after Election Day whether the ballot was accepted or not accepted. Again, every single one of those 623 locations will be able to help you. If you're not sure of your status, they're able to call the voter registrar's office and get that information. Did I see another hand? Right here. Yes, sir. It was the provisional voting process. Absolutely. Yes, sir. Actually, they're going to refresh the screen again. At that moment, it was 83,000 votes, but it is a moving target. I mean, 623 locations, they're all processing and checking in voters as we go. So give me just a second, and my team is going to refresh the screen and let us know just how many. OK, moments ago, Harris County over 100,000 and it's not even noon yet. A hundred and over one hundred and twelve thousand voters have cast their ballots within two hours. Yeah, I have cast their ballots here in Harris County. So we have hit the hundred thousand mark of voters and they are coming in just a check in at a time at all of those locations. So over one hundred and twelve thousand. And I just gave you eighty three thousand. That shows you how many people, how many voters were able to check in and real time at every vote center. And again, the ballot's long, so they check in. Again, they vote their ballot, but as soon as we get the check-in is where we're able to track how many people are coming in to vote at every single vote center. They're giving me another update. She is a busy lady today. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I miscounted. That was 86,000 votes. 86,000 votes. I was going to say that moved really fast. So 86,000 votes. But I hope before noon we get to the 100,000 mark. 86,000 voters have voted. So please make that correction at this very time. I don't have the timestamp. And our hope is that we get to over 100,000 by noon. OK, we got that. Thank you. Yes. Yeah, so there have been many questions about the Department of Justice sending monitors. First of all, let me say this is not anything new. I've been doing this work for 21 years under many administrations, and now I'm the county clerk. DOJ monitors normally come during a presidential or whenever there's a federal election or midterm. And so those individuals are here now around the county. Outside the 100-foot marker, by law in the state of Texas, DOJ monitors can be outside of polls, outside the 100-foot marker, not within the 100 feet. And we've been receiving updates all morning long of what locations they are at or when they go to another location. So this is a very transparent process. No one's, you know, hiding anything. We are fully aware of how many monitors, where the monitors are at, and where they're going throughout the day. And they're not just going to one location. They're going to different locations throughout the day. So again, by law, DOJ monitors. The DOJ monitors can be here, but they can only be outside the 100-foot marker at every single voting center. DOJ monitors are not the only monitors that are out in the field today, right? We also have congressional observers. Those individuals are allowed within 100 foot of the polling location, including state monitors or state observers. The Secretary of State always sends individuals on Election Day throughout early voting. They are all credentialed, though. So they cannot just walk into the building and start observing or having conversations with the The elections workers, they all have to show their credentials of who they are and why they are there. So those are not the only monitors. And then, of course, these individuals are not monitors, but poll watchers are allowed by law. The Texas Election Code allows for poll watchers to be inside the polling location with proper certificate on behalf of a candidate or measure on behalf of a political party. So those individuals are poll watching throughout the county, too. You've been listening to Harris County Clerk Tanisha Hudspeth saying that more than 86,000 Harris County voters have already voted today. We saw record-breaking early voting numbers for a midterm election. Will we see records fall here for a midterm on election day? We'll have to wait and see. You can see we have polling locations and sample ballots for more than a dozen of our local counties on the homepage of fox26houston.com. We'll be right back.