Ballot error not an issue, officials say

2 voters issued wrong ballot in council race

At least two voters erroneously received City of Hutto ballots in last Saturday’s election, calling into question the integrity of the process and leading some to discuss a recount.

Daryl Tschoepe, technology support specialist at Southwestern University, said he received a ballot to vote in the City of Hutto elections, even though he lives outside of the city limits.

Tschoepe lives in the Lookout at Brushy Creek subdivision, south of Hutto in Williamson County. He voted at Hutto City Hall.

Williamson County Elections Administrator Rick Barron said his office can confirm two mistakes.

“Of the 500 plus ballots that were cast in Hutto, it looks like two ballots were issued to voters that should have had the Hutto ISD only ballot and they received the Hutto ISD and Hutto City Council ballot,” he said.

Tschoepe said he did not notify poll workers about the error at the time because he was in a hurry.

“I expected [the computer system] to kick me out,” he said. “I was pretty shocked when it accepted my ballot.”

If he had alerted a poll worker to the error, Barron said, the problem could have been corrected immediately.

“If he had the wrong poll, he had ample time to let us know,” he said. “There’s a sign that says if you’ve been issued the wrong ballot, please alert an election worker. We can do a spoiled-ballot process and issue a new ballot.”

The Williamson County Elections Office could not confirm that Tschoepe was one of the recipients of the wrong ballot.

“It’s secret,” Barron said. “We have to take [Tschoepe’s] word for it.”

Tschoepe said he is not pushing for a recount, but that the problem should be corrected for future elections.

“I’m certainly concerned about the accuracy of the election process in Williamson County,” he said. “It kind of shakes my faith in the integrity of the process.”

Barron said that mistakes are less common when using electronic ballots than with paper.

“Especially if it gets busy, a poll worker could put the ballots back in the wrong folder, or could pull ballots from the wrong folder by accident,” he said. “It’s harder for mistakes to be made with the electronic ballot.”

Steven “Bear” Salfelder, who lost the Hutto mayoral race to incumbent Ken Love by a slim 23 votes, said he would like to see a recount.

“I’ll be pushing for a recount and a detailed accounting of what happened,” he said. “It shouldn’t have happened.”

Barron said that his office is not planning to initiate a recount process and he does not think the mistake would make a difference in the final election results, but a private citizen may do so.

“After the canvas is done, if somebody wants a recount, they have up to two days after the canvas to request one,” he said. “Whoever wants the recount has to put down a deposit based on the cost to our office to do a recount.”