Harris County is already anticipating late election outcomes for the November midterms – WFAA.com

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — Election Day may flip into an extended evening in Harris County, as officers there are already warning about late outcomes.

Harris County Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum says his workplace has been operating eventualities and conditions attempting to calculate how lengthy the vote rely may take.

“Fingers crossed, we’re taking a look at 1 (a.m.), 1:30, perhaps 2 o’clock is what we’re hoping for,” Tatum stated on Inside Texas Politics.

And if a statewide race is shut, which means huge image outcomes may very well be delayed as nicely.

Tatum joined Inside Texas Politics from NRG Stadium in Houston, dwelling to the county’s central rely location. He says they constructed a “mini-city” inside the ability only for the election.

Harris County is utilizing two machines to rely votes from 782 completely different places, probably the most precincts within the state. The tools takes a couple of minute to learn the info from every of these places.

Tatum says they have already got a 3rd machine readily available. However they’re ready to deploy it till they’ve run sufficient high quality management checks on the primary two, to make completely sure the readers are doing what they’re imagined to do.

“A part of our technique is to make sure that we’re exercising high quality management over the gadgets which might be being learn into the system,” the elections administrator informed us. “As soon as we see that we’re capable of management these explicit gadgets, then we may very well ramp as much as a 3rd reader in order that we’re truly processing extra outcomes than two at a time.”

Tatum says they gained’t make any dramatic adjustments to the method this near the election, in order that third reader seemingly gained’t be used this cycle.