Dallas County ballot errors may have impacted Prop U vote
DALLAS - Thousands of people received the wrong ballot on Election Day in Dallas County. While most local races were not close enough to be impacted by the error, it could have impacted one controversial city proposition.
Dallas City Council members tried to discuss the problem on Tuesday while being asked to certify the election results.
Elections officials admitted some people inside the Dallas city limits did not get ballots that included the charter amendments, while others outside the city did.
The issue was discovered based on how many people from each precinct were checked in versus how many ballots from the precinct were cast.
"What we have been able to quantify is about 3,960 I believe is the number that people that are all over Dallas County that in one way or another got a ballot that was not for their precinct. And we cannot trace individual ballots. We cannot tell that this is this person’s ballot," said Dallas County Elections Administrator Heider Garcia.
Proposition U, a controversial city charter amendment that requires the city to hire 900 additional police officers, won by 3,204 votes. That’s less than the number of ballots given in error.
Dallas HERO Amendments: Props S, U passed
Former and current Dallas city leaders warned that the so-called HERO amendments sound good but could have disastrous results. However, voters approved two of them anyway.
"Someone has voted on city of Dallas propositions for or against who does not live in the city of Dallas. And then we're going to be expected to pay the bill on this," argued Dallas Councilwoman Gay Donnell Willis.
"3,900 ballots that we just don’t know exactly what elections people voted in, what they didn't, how they would have voted," added Councilman Omar Narvaez.
"Does the council have the legal authority to decline to acknowledge the election on a proposition where the margin of that vote was less than 3,960 votes?" asked Councilman Paul Ridley.
The city’s attorney told council members it was their duty to authorize the result. They were restricted to doing only that at Tuesday's meeting.
There may be a time for questions later.
"I will call a special meeting and ask you to attend. We'll work on a date that's convenient for you so that our committee could ask the questions on the record and just make sure that the public understand what happened and why and what those implications are," said Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn.
But the city cannot challenge the election results. That’s reserved for 25 or more Dallas voters acting as a group or a campaign treasurer.
"Per the conversation I had with the elections administrator, there's no cure for this issue," said Dallas City Secretary Bilierae Johnson.