Paper ballots for upcoming Collin County elections contain oval bubbles that voters will fill in by hand.

Starting with November’s general election, Collin County voters will be going back to the future.

Collin County commissioners have agreed to return to hand-marked paper ballots except for voters with vision or mobility challenges. They would still be able to use electronic ballot marking devices.

The county last used paper ballots in the early 2000s, Collin County Elections Administrator Kaleb Breaux said.

The motion came from County Judge Chris Hill, whose two previous attempts to abandon voting machines failed for lack of a second.

“I have confidence in our system in Collin County,” Hill said at a meeting last year. “I believe that our system is fair and that it’s safe, that it’s secure, and that we have election integrity — but I can’t prove that to you in real time.”

Precinct 2 Commissioner Cheryl Williams seconded Hill’s motion, which carried 4-0 at the Monday, June 9, meeting. Precinct 4 Commissioner Duncan Webb was absent.

Breaux said he will present an implementation plan at the commissioners’ Monday, June 23, meeting.

“It’ll be a different method of delivering a ballot to a voter,” Breaux said.

Current voting machines have a touch screen that can be scrolled to accommodate any number of candidates or propositions.

“We’re now moving to a physical paper ballot, and you’re limited with what you can fit on a 14-inch, 17-inch, 19-inch ballot, so it could require more sheets than maybe we’ve seen in the past,” Breaux said.

Each ballot would be printed on demand at the polling place and then given to the voter to mark before it is scanned to be counted on the same scanners used now.

The marked ballots would then be retained for recounts or future audits. Breaux said that although the elections office in McKinney is short of space, the ballots could be stored securely off site for 22 months following an election.

Hill asked Breaux if he had confidence the change could be made by the Tuesday, Nov. 4, election.

“I’ve reached out to several vendors that are going to be providing … the resources that we need to pull this off,” Breaux said. “It’s going to be tight, but I believe that my staff and I can answer the call to holding the November election.”

Early voting starts Oct. 20 and there will be 17 proposed constitutional amendments being considered statewide.

Implementing hand-marked paper ballots would cost the county about $2.4 million, Breaux said.

That would include two printers for each of the county’s 117 polling places plus backups. The county would also need to purchase voting booths so ballots could be marked in private.

Breaux said voters would fill in oval bubbles for each ballot entry and then insert the ballots into the DS 200 scanner. He said that’s where a potential delay could occur.

The current ballot markers notify voters in real time if they skipped a ballot entry or voted for too many items.

“Once the ballot is inserted in the ES&S DS200, it will then notify voters if they undervoted or overvoted and they will then have the option to confirm the ballot or have it returned to them,” the elections administrator said.

“The elections judge would then spoil [void] the returned ballot and give the voter a new one for an opportunity to correct any problem,” Breaux said.

The printed ballots would resemble the mail ballots presently used. “It would kind of be the ballot-by-mail method in the polling place,” he said.

Because the same scanners would be used, Breaux did not expect any delays in tabulating or sharing election results.

Last November about 70% of Collin County nearly 752,000 registered voters cast ballots, Collin County Elections reported. Eight out of 10 ballots were cast early and 3% of ballots were mailed in. The county currently has about 744,000 registered voters, Breaux said.

The elections administrator did not anticipate the new method would require additional staff, but he was consulting with his most seasoned poll workers and election judges to make sure they would have enough people.

The county judge said the court’s action brings Collin County into compliance with President Trump’s Executive Order 14248 of March 25, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.”

That order said, “voting systems should not use a ballot in which a vote is contained within a barcode or quick-response code in the vote counting process except where necessary to accommodate individuals with disabilities and should provide a voter-verifiable paper record to prevent fraud or mistake.”

Collin County was the largest Texas county making the switch to ballots on demand this year, so Breaux said other elections administrators would be watching to see how easily they make the change.

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