HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — Harris County election duties are now in the hands of the county clerk and tax assessor-collector.
The transition was made a few weeks ago when a new law went into effect.
On Monday, the local offices tested voting machines, as required by the state ahead of the upcoming November election. The testing process will take a few days to complete. The election workers have to test about 700 different Harris County election ballots to make sure each one is accurate on Election Day on Nov. 7.
The test run is required under the Texas Election Code.
"Today is the first day the pre-election testing board convenes for the purpose of testing the logic and accuracy of the equipment to be used in the upcoming election," Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth said. "Our diverse county is home to over 2.5 million registered voters and their ballots will have different contests depending on where they are registered."
There has been a bit of turnover after a recent transition of power eliminated the elections administrator position and put election duties back under the county tax assessor-collector, who will handle voter registration, and the county clerk, who will handle election administration.
Last November, parties claimed a shortage of ballot papers targeted certain polls. This year, Hudspeth said that won't be an issue.
"One thing we should not worry about this election cycle is paper. We will have more than enough paper," Hudspeth said.
She said this election will be similar to previous ones in that headquarters will be at NRG and the machines will be the same.
"It’s all touch screen, right, so I'm just making selections," Hudspeth said. "This isn’t a receipt. This is your actual vote, and you have to go to the scan to actually feed your ballot in for your vote to count."
The elections office will be hosting community events to help people get more familiar with the voting machines. They will be posting those events on their calendar.