Election day confusion means thousands of Dallas County votes don't count

DALLAS - Many voters in Dallas County woke up to the news that their late votes would not count towards Tuesday's primary elections. 

The Texas Supreme Court overruled a Dallas County judge's extension on voting hours, which left voters more confused than they already were from the morning where voting location confusion abounded.

A confusing day for Dallas County voters

What we know:

Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins says about 2,450 votes that were cast in Dallas County after 7 p.m. will be null and void following the Texas Supreme Court's ruling.

Those votes came from Democrats, who had a confusing and frustrating day trying to cast their ballot.

Split primary election frustrates many

For the first time in years, Dallas County voters were required to cast election day ballots at their assigned precinct locations.

Republicans had requested a split primary election, splitting the two parties' voting locations instead of holding a joint election with countywide voting centers.

This led to many voters, mainly Democrats, being turned away from their usual polling locations. An error on the Texas Secretary of State's website gave voters incorrect information on polling locations and led to even more people being turned away, and the Dallas County website crashed with voters trying to figure out where they can vote.

Jenkins told FOX 4's Vania Castillo that some polling locations had to turn away as many as 90% of voters who showed up to the wrong location.

Zebulon Smith lives five minutes away from where she normally votes. But the new rule meant she couldn't vote there, and would have to walk over half an hour to her precinct's voting station.

"Wow. It don't make any sense," Smith told Castillo. "Why would you separate Democrats from the Republicans? Why? So they know who they intimidate."

Voting hours extended, then rescinded

Based on the early confusion, Dallas County Democrats asked for and received a court ruling that extended voting hours in Dallas County until 9 p.m. for Democrats.

Ten minutes before the new deadline, the Texas State Supreme Court overruled the Dallas County judge, meaning that any votes cast after the original 7 p.m. deadline did not count.

"We expected chaos, unfortunately."

What they're saying:

Jenkins told Castillo said he expected chaos based on the new voting policies, and that's exactly what the county got.

"The county spent a million dollars to inform people of that," Jenkins told Castillo about trying to tell voters of the changes. "But even so many, many people who voted yesterday were not aware that vote in their own precinct."

The biggest lesson Jenkins hopes the county learns for the next election cycle? "That there's no need to have separate primaries."

Integrity of the election process

Kardal Coleman, the chair of the Dallas County Democratic Party, says the amount of votes that didn't count wouldn't change the outcome of the election. He says it's more about the integrity of the election process, and making sure every vote counts.

"The fact that we were in this situation to even begin with, the Republican Party had a chance to do the responsible thing by voters, and they failed to do that, which caused chaos on election day," Coleman told FOX 4's Amelia Jones.

"The goal is, number one, to protect every vote. Also, the goal is to make sure that we're organized and strategized around who we are and what we care about most, and that's having free and fair elections."

Coleman said the party is weighing legal options in the wake of the election day drama. David Coale, an election law expert, told Jones that Democrats could have a legal case since the website crashed during election day.

"It's an unintentional problem. It misdirected some people. Nobody meant for it to be an issue, and it's something that affected a lot of people the same way. So you have more of a case there for doing something for a broad swath of people across the whole county," Coale said.