FORT BEND COUNTY, Texas — One day before Election Day, Fort Bend County officials revealed dozens of their voter registrations were coded to the wrong precinct.
They blamed it on a coding error linked to redistricting in 2021.
“It is a minor blip on the radar,” said KP George, Fort Bend County Judge, during a news conference Monday morning announcing the findings. “We do not anticipate these coding errors to materially affect the outcome of tomorrow’s election.”
Still, George said it’s a serious matter county officials are working to remedy and learn from.
John Oldham, Fort Bend County election administrator, said his office became aware of the issue in the second week of early voting, learning some voters were being given a ballot for a different precinct.
“We researched this and discovered that in 2021, we had moved two, three streets who were orphaned from their own neighborhood into the correct area," said Oldham. "Unfortunately, we only recoded one of them and not the other. That affected 24 addresses.”
Since then, Oldham says his office has been reviewing all changes made since redistricting, with 168 out of 175 precincts completed so far.
“We found two more street ranges that were incorrect,” said Oldham. “Altogether, with the first ones and these two, it represents less than 100 out of 532,061 voters.”
As officials wrap their review, they’re urging voters to double-check their precinct on the county website’s interactive map.
If a voter finds their precinct race on their ballot doesn’t match, they should alert a poll worker.
“The poll worker can notify the elections office, and the issue can be remedied then and there with a manual ballot before they cast their ballot,” said Charann Thompson, Chief of the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office Public Integrity Division.
Thompson emphasized once a voter casts their ballot, it cannot be undone.
In response to emailed questions from following the press conference about how exactly the miscoding happened and how many of the impacted voters cast their ballot in the wrong precinct race, KHOU 11 News received this response late Monday afternoon from a spokesperson for the Fort Bend County District Attorney's Office:
We have been advised by John Oldham, the elections administrator, that the research is ongoing. Any errors found are being corrected such that no issue will exist on election day tomorrow. For the few voters affected, we do not know if there is an impact or not. Elections only knows that a ballot was cast, but not which races those voters voted in. For example, if the voter intentionally only voted in the presidential race and nothing down ballot, then there would be no harm.