2026 Election: Harris County clerk speaks after voting locations close

Good evening and thank you for joining us. I'm Tanisha Hutzpeth, your Harris County clerk. That's T-E-N-E-S-H-I-A. Hutzpeth, H-U-D-S-P-E-T-H. Record breaking numbers requires record breaking time. So the polls have officially closed at 7 p.m. However, there were many voters across Harris County still in line. By 7 p.m. So we will have another hour of so a voter still casting their ballot because they met the 7 p.m. timeline. The results we are providing tonight are all early voting in person and by mail. It is now on Harris votes dot com Harris votes dot com election results tab is what you can hit to get that information. So early voting in person and voting by mail numbers represent about 39% of our 2.7 million. registered voters here in Harris County. Again, we have many voters still in line at vote centers across Harris County waiting to cast their ballot in this election. Now, we are not at presidential numbers, but this midterm resembled presidential in many different ways. Once the election judges close their vote centers. So for those that still have voters, they will allow those individuals to vote. Once they close those vote centers, they'll quickly begin their paperwork and all the shutdown procedures before going to their regional collection site that's designated here in Harris County. So we will have to give our election judges plenty of grace, especially those who are still processing voters. All 623 vote centers will report their boxes, paperwork and all items in which we will go through chain of custody. The final location will be here to headquarters and throughout the night as we get those vote center boxes and all of the information, we will provide results for election day. Right now at this time on harrisvotes.com are early voting in person and ballot by mail results. All this unofficial information again is at harrisvotes.com. So for our call center data for today. We received approximately 2,100 calls for most of the day. About 44% were voter processing registration status. Equipment was about 10% support there. And for voting information, like what location can I go to vote? In this case, you can vote absolutely anywhere in Harris County. Or their ballot, the length of their ballot. Ballot information was about 31% in voter registration. As a whole 4%. So those were the majority of our calls for today that we quickly had our call center take care of. I want to I want to make sure that you all understand that the numbers you were seeing right now are early voting in person and ballot by mail. Again, as election judges come in, we will process election night results. It will take some time. So anybody thinking about how long it's going to take, it will go well into the night, into the morning. I want to go ahead and make that clear right now because so many vote centers are still voting voters. Are there any questions? Right, that's right. You're not going to see lines on the website for the voting locations, okay? Those individuals are working to process voters. The only thing you see on the website is the actual locations and whether there's wait times or not, okay? I forgot to mention something earlier. In order to run elections in Harris County, It takes a huge village to get it done. There are thousands of individuals who have served as election workers. There are hundreds of individuals who work for the county clerk's office and have worked around the clock all year round because we have now conducted over nine elections in one year. I want to say thank you to every single one of those individuals who sacrificed their time, time away from their family, working hard to meet the needs of the voters across Harris County. So thank you. I know many of them are still working in the field, but a lot of them are here working here at our headquarters. So I wanted to say thank you. Are there any other questions? It very well could be the case. We don't have the actual data to tell you what vote centers, the amount of vote centers, or which ones right now. Obviously, I'm here in front of the camera. I'm not with my data. Individuals, but there are certain locations that had lines versus others. There are some who have already shut down, and they're headed to a regional collection site. So there's no official number. I know everyone wants to know how many locations where the locations are at right now. We know we still have voters voting according to our call center and they're tracking that down now. I just said at the beginning, record-breaking numbers in the midterm requires record-breaking time, right? And so we want to make sure we take our time and we provide the most updated report to everyone. People are still voting, right? And so what we provided to you is the numbers we have at this very moment, and we will continue to move forward on those reports as we speak. Also, remember, we mentioned this entire election cycle. This was one of the longest ballots we have seen in the nation and across the state of Texas, right? Right. More than. Most of the county had over 100 contests to vote in, some more than that. So that makes the length of the ballot very long. It takes a little bit longer to even print reports, okay? So, again, there are many different aspects that requires more time of us. This is the third largest county in the nation, and you get that a little bit more on election night when all these individuals who have volunteered their time to come in, do the work, and get it all done so that we can start counting. So, again, it's going to be some time. Uh, if you, you're going to have to patiently hurry up and wait is what it's called, right? Uh, Harrisvotes.com is where you can go now to get that information. We will provide updates throughout the night, um, and we'll allow these election workers to get in safely, get what they need to get done. But most importantly, make sure that every eligible voter that has the opportunity to do so can do so. Again, we'll continue to update you throughout the night. I think that's all we have for right now because we have got to get to work. Make sure the election workers have the support that they need to get in this evening. So thank you so much, Harris County. You make us proud. Yes, sir. Hundreds, hundreds here, here in this facility, but thousands throughout the night. Thousands throughout the night. Yes. At this point, is there anything that you would have done differently this election? I don't think so. The question was, is there anything I would have done differently? I think we did all we can and then some, right? And it's not just about me, just so you all know. There are tons of folks who are working full-time around the clock with me to get this job done. So we did our job. We followed the law. We did our job. And now the rest is up to the voters to finish casting their ballots and the election workers to get those boxes in so we can feed you all the results. You all have a very good night. Thank you.