Atascosa County Judge’s Report



When we are finished with the present election, we will be scheduling a meeting of the county election board.  The county election board controls management of voting systems and ballots as well as personnel for the elections. We must make decisions for the next election.  I also plan to have the representative from ESS Voting Machines there to make a presentation.

How many times have you said, or heard it said, that we should be able to vote on all the elections, at one time in one place?  Well, I have and I have heard it a lot and for years. Guess what?  Technology is making that a possibility.  It is called “county-wide voting”. It is something we can consider and plan for.  How it would work is, we would have fewer than half of the polling stations we have now, but you could vote at any one of them, anywhere in the county.  There would be all voters listed at all stations and all elections at all stations.  IT security is critical to this and Justin Vasquez will be discussing that at the upcoming meeting.  But it is exciting.  Medina County has already gone to this and we have gone there and reviewed what their election office is doing.  We can be faster and more efficient and more convenient.  I think it would increase voter turnout.  Think about it.  If you lived in Christine you could, on election day, drive to H-E-B, Wal-Mart, MG or conducting business at the courthouse and stop by either the Pleasanton or Jourdanton polling station and vote. And, if the cities and school districts went in with us, we could truly have one-stop voting.  I think it is worth considering and working toward.

We are reaching the end of life on the existing electronic voting machines we have, so I think when we plan to replace these we should think toward the future.  If there is a better way we should consider it. Shouldn’t we?

Thanks for listening.

We want you to be proud of your County Government.

Bob Hurley is the Atascosa County Judge. You may E-mail him at countyjudge@atascosacounty.texas.gov.

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