- Texas tells U.S. Justice Department that federal election monitors aren’t allowed in polling places.
Texas’ top elections official told the U.S. Department of Justice on Friday its election monitors aren’t permitted in the state's polling places after the federal agency announced plans to dispatch monitors to eight counties on Election Day to ensure compliance with federal voting rights laws.
- Dan Patrick debunks claims about Texas voting machines switching votes.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick publicly debunked claims that voting machines in the state are changing the selections voters make.
But Patrick, who is also a Republican, quickly corrected the national party leader on social media. The lieutenant governor said fewer than 10 people out of the nearly 7 million Texans who had already cast ballots across the state claimed that their selections were changed, but officials could not confirm a single instance of that happening.
A community college could transform the Lockhart area. Will voters approve it?
This November, the college is coming to voters in the Lockhart Independent School District with a proposition to begin paying into the Austin Community College taxing district. In exchange, residents would qualify for in-district tuition and trigger a long-term plan to build out college facilities in this rural stretch of Texas, which is positioning itself to tap into the economic boom flowing into the smaller communities nestled between Austin and San Antonio.
Community colleges have long played a crucial role in recovering economies. But in Lockhart, ACC’s potential expansion could serve as a case study of the role colleges can play in emerging economies as local leaders and community members eye the economic growth on the horizon.
That is, if they can convince enough of their neighbors to help pay for it.
In Dallas, ballot propositions could drastically change police and city government.
Three Dallas city charter amendments, buried at the very end of the upcoming November ballot, could drastically affect the city’s police department — and change how local government operates.
If passed, those amendments could force the city to hire hundreds more police officers and dictate where some excess revenue is spent, tie the city manager’s compensation to a community survey — and allow residents to sue the city for violating the charter while forcing the city to waive its governmental immunity.
Advocates say the propositions would place the power of accountability back in Dallas resident’s hands — while also increasing police staffing.
“Propositions S, T and U are a suite of ballot propositions … that came together because of Dallas citizens’ refusal to accept a lot of the bad headlines that we were seeing,” Pete Marocco, the executive director of Dallas HERO, the group responsible for the amendments, told KERA.
When will Texas election results come in? Here’s how the process unfolds.
Soon after polls close at 7 p.m. on Election Day, election officials begin to post early voting totals that will give Texans their first glimpse of results. But knowing the actual outcome of the election could take much longer, as election officials follow a long list of procedures to ensure your vote is counted accurately.
In large counties such as Harris, Dallas, Tarrant and Collin, where election workers and officials will be coordinating the counting of Election Day ballots coming in from hundreds of voting locations, results are likely to be particularly slow. But it’s not for a lack of effort by election workers often working past midnight to meet the state’s 24-hour deadline.
