Early voting for the November 6th General Election doesn’t end till Friday, however, Lamar County voters are continuing to break records.
“The numbers are just astonishing, and this has never happened before,” said Elections Administrator Tricia Johnson.
The number of those who have voted already are so high, they’ve already broken the 11-day early voting record during the Presidential Election…and there are still four days left in the early voting period.
“In 11 days during the Presidential Election we had 7,325 votes and by Monday afternoon, day seven, we had 7,385 votes,” said Johnson. “People are getting out and making their voice heard and they want their voice heard.”
Early voting continues through Friday, November 2nd, till 5 p.m. at the Lamar County Annex located at 231 Lamar Avenue in Paris.
For more voter information, click here
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While records continue to be broken at the polls, concerns over the voting machines used in Lamar County has been raised with recent mainstream media claiming voting machines are “switching ballots”.
The machines reportedly “switching ballots” are Hart eSlate voting machines, however, Tricia Johnson reinforces Lamar County does not use these machines and also keeps a paper trail.
“We use ES&S voting machines in Lamar County and always have,” said Johnson. “We never had a problem with them and we do, in fact, have a paper trail in Lamar County also.”
Johnson also explained that after the General Election is over, the State actually requires a partial manual count.
As posted by the Secretary of State website, Pursuant to Section 127.201(a) of the Texas Election Code (the “Code”), to ensure the accuracy of the tabulation of electronic voting systems, the general custodian of election records in an election in which an electronic voting system is used must conduct a partial manual count. The purpose of this advisory is to inform you of changes to the partial manual count that will begin with the November 6, 2018 election. These changes will affect all counties that use an electronic voting system for the counting of ballots. (Read more here)
Anyone who may have concerns or questions about the November 6th General Election can contact Tricia Johnson at 903-782-1116.
