Jenkins: Dallas County will be ready for voters in March
DALLAS - Judge Clay Jenkins said he is confident the March presidential primary election will run smoothly in Dallas County despite questions about the security of the voting equipment.
However, the county is still working through costly problems.
In an interview on FOX 4’s Good Day, Jenkins assured voters the newly purchased electronic voting equipment will be in place and workers will be trained in time for voters to cast their ballot.
It’s the waste of taxpayer money that he said has him the most upset.
The county’s elections supervisor has come under scrutiny after the brand new voter identification poll books that the county spent $6 million on don’t work properly with the brand new voting machines that the county spent $25 more on.
Jenkins explained the original software wasn’t secure enough and could be hacked. And so the county had to spend more money with a different company for more secure software.
And then there’s the question of why, just six weeks from the primaries, a brand new warehouse isn’t even ready to store all of that new equipment.
One county commissioner raised concerns about there being no Plan B if the equipment doesn’t work.
Jenkins said he is confident the election sites will be ready that there won’t be a need for a Plan B. He said training on the new software devices won’t take much time.
“There are some things I’m pretty upset about within the system but here’s the main thing – March primaries will be ready. Training on the new iPad-type poll books starts Monday. We already have 600 of them for training. We get another 700 in Monday. We will be ready for the March primaries. No one should worry about their vote counting and being secure in March,” he said.
Dallas County taxpayers forked over more than $1 million extra to rent a facility to house that new equipment.
The first day of early voting for the primary is Feb. 18.