Gillespie County Republicans are again planning to hand-count ballots during their primary elections.
The Gillespie County GOP passed resolutions to hand-count votes and ban countywide polling for the 2026 Republican primary and runoff elections.
The hand-count resolution language, adopted April 22 and amended May 13, will appear in next year’s county election service contracts, according to an unofficial press release on X.
“This resolution reflects our commitment to a transparent, secure, and voter-focused election process,” said Gillespie County Early Voting Ballot Board member Tonya Benson. “The success of our 2024 hand-count method has shown that this approach is both effective and trustworthy.”
The Hays County Republican Party cited Gillespie’s work when it passed a similar hand-count resolution last August.
The Gillespie County GOP had over 250 volunteers successfully hand-count the 2024 Primary Election.
Gillespie County GOP Chairman Bruce Campbell, who oversaw the 2024 hand count, believes this method works well for smaller, rural counties like Gillespie but would prove challenging for larger, urban counties, such as Harris County, with its nearly 1,200 voting precincts.
“You’re going to have to rent Reliant Stadium with 5,000 people in there counting ballots next to each other loudly,” said Campbell. “I don’t know how you would do it.”
Campbell, who came from Harris County, worked as a precinct chair and on the ballot security committee while volunteering with the late Alan Vera. This helped him learn how different systems affect fraud methods.
“I neither support nor oppose hand counts,” said Campbell. “I support election integrity.”
He added that hand-counted paper ballots are not bulletproof; risk trade-offs will result.
“Just because you’re choosing one method over another doesn’t mean you’ve eliminated any risk,” Campbell stated. “You just have different risks.”
Indeed, the Gillespie County GOP found several transcription and calculation errors in the unofficial election results for 12 of its 13 precinct polling locations.
Volunteers swiftly fixed the issues just before the 24-hour canvass deadline following the close of the election, allowing them to declare the hand-count a success.
Before the election, left-wing media outlets criticized the method as slow and more error-prone.
However, human error also occurs in machine-counted elections.
After the 2020 Primary Election official vote canvass, Dallas County officials discovered they had missed 9,100 ballots stored on thumb drives from tabulating machines at vote centers.
Following the 2022 primaries, the former Democrat Harris County election administrator resigned after her office uncovered its failure to count 10,000 mail ballots.
Even without humans counting, electronic voting machines have caused election problems.
During the 2024 General Election, Dallas County experienced severe delays on the first day of early voting when ES&S electronic poll books printed the wrong ballot types and continually restarted. The Secretary of State decertified the e-poll books last December.
Technology issues will not affect the 2026 Gillespie Republican Primary, however, as the resolution bans machines except for one disability-compliant device per precinct for accessibility purposes. It also requires precinct-level voting, printed paper poll books at each location on Election Day, and hand-marked, sequentially numbered ballots printed on counterfeit-resistant paper, each signed by an election judge.
While the hand-count resolution bans countywide polling programs on Election Day, Gillespie passed another resolution banning countywide polling locations for early voting. One location will have all ballots sorted by precinct and hand-counted by the Early Voting Ballot Board.
The countywide polling ban proved more contentious in the executive committee due to what appear to be conflicting state statutes.
Gillespie County Precinct Chair David Treibs disagreed. He referenced a different statute stating that the county executive committee shall supervise the overall conduct of a primary election.
“I don’t think anybody thinks the word ‘supervise’ means you’re in total control. It’s never meant that ever before,” said Campbell. “If it means that, let’s don’t have early voting and let’s don’t have mail-in ballots. Let’s just have everybody vote on Election Day!”
Campbell ruled Treibs’ resolution out of order because he said it conflicted with state law.
“It’s the Republican Party’s election,” Triebs responded. “How is it that we can’t control our own election?”
Treibs and other chairs successfully appealed Campbell’s ruling, eventually passing the countywide ban resolution.
Despite their dispute, Campbell said he will honor the executive committee’s vote and claims to have contacted the Secretary of State’s office for further advice. It has yet to reply.
While Campbell doubts that any significant fraud will occur in his county’s primary election, he encourages any interested volunteers to come and help them hand-count ballots.
“The first time you do it, you are learning. The next time it’s a little easier,” said Campbell. “We’re going to be even better experts at it, should we ever be required to do it in November.”
