Two Texas counties extend voting by an hour after delays

State judges extended voting in Texas’s Harris County and Bell County by one hour after malfunctions caused delays at some polling locations. 

The elections department in Harris County, which includes Houston and is the state’s most populous county with nearly 5 million residents, said voting will be extended until 8 p.m. local time at the county’s 782 polling locations but did not provide specifics about what caused the mishaps. 

James Stafford, Bell County’s public information officer, told The Hill that officials noticed issues with the county’s election check-in technology early Tuesday morning, leading eight locations to not open until shortly before 9 a.m. local time. 

Stafford said voters in the county can cast a ballot at any polling location, and the issue occurred because some of the county’s systems failed to calibrate properly after not adjusting to the time change when daylight saving time ended over the weekend. 

In both counties, voters who arrive in line after 7 p.m. will cast provisional ballots.  

Stafford said Bell County was doing so to sequester the ballots in case of challenges but stressed that officials plan to count those votes.