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Dallas County GOP scraps plan to hand count primary ballots

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Published  January 1, 2026 1:29pm CST
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SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA, UNITED STATES - 2023/11/07: A woman takes a mail-in ballot from an envelope at a polling station in Pennsylvania. Municipal Elections in Pennsylvania had a low turnout. In the most recent statistic, about 15% to 27% of eligibl

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The Brief

    • The Dallas County Republican Party has officially canceled its plan to hand-count ballots for the upcoming March primary, citing a shortage of more than 1,500 volunteers needed to meet legal reporting deadlines.
    • Despite reverting to electronic voting machines, the party still intends to use a precinct-based model on Election Day, meaning Republican voters must cast ballots at their assigned neighborhood locations rather than countywide centers.
    • Chairman Allen West noted that the decision was made to protect election judges from legal liability, though he indicated the party intends to revisit the hand-count initiative for the 2028 presidential primary.

DALLAS - The Dallas County Republican Party has scrapped its plan to hand-count ballots for the upcoming March primary, citing a significant shortage of volunteers.

While the party will return to using electronic tabulating equipment, Republican leadership still intends to move forward with a shift away from countywide voting on Election Day.

What's New:

Dallas County GOP Chairman Allen West announced that the party fell short of the more than 3,000 volunteers required to accurately hand-count votes on primary election day. The decision was finalized on Dec. 29, just before the contract deadline with the county.

What they're saying:

"If you can mitigate those risks, then you can move forward. If there's no path to mitigation, then you can't continue on," West said. "We cannot take that risk of not being able to have the appropriate amount of counters because it would put our election judges in an untenable legal position."

Changes for Election Day in Dallas

What we know:

Despite the reversal on hand-counting, the GOP still plans to conduct a "precinct-based" election. This means Republican voters will likely only be able to cast their ballots at their specifically assigned neighborhood precincts on Election Day, rather than at any countywide polling location.

The Dallas County Democratic Party plans to continue utilizing countywide voting, allowing their voters to use any polling site in the county. Under Texas law, if one party chooses precinct-based voting, it can often complicate the "joint primary" setup, and officials are still clarifying how this will impact logistics at shared polling sites.

What's next:

West stated that the party will use the lessons learned from this cycle to prepare for a potential hand-count during the 2028 presidential primary.

Early voting for the March primary is scheduled to begin on Feb. 17.

The Source: Information in this article comes from the Dallas County GOP.

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