Tuesday, January 21, 2020

From the Texas Tribune: A ballot box found weeks after Election Day has flipped a $569 million school bond vote in Midland

Wow

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County officials found the missing box in early December. Taking into account those 836 votes, plus one stray ticket found separately from the box that had also been misplaced, the results flipped again. The new version of final results, which Land said should finally lay the issue to rest, was 11,800 votes in favor of the bond and 11,826 against. The result means that Midland ISD will not receive the authority to build two new high schools.

For those scoring at home, the bond passed, then failed, then passed and then failed again. Political groups on both sides of the bond vote will now ask the Midland County judge to cement the most recent results so all sides can “go forward,” Land said.

"Though this is not the result that supporters of the 2019 school bond worked for, it was what we expected and were prepared for," We Choose Our Future, the group in favor of the bond, wrote in a statement on Facebook. "Today’s exercise was an opportunity to build trust in the process for future elections and bring closure to this election so that the work on another bond plan can begin."