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After scrambling to come up with replacement e-Slate machines over the past several months, Harris County elections officials say they actually have more than they had during a similar election in 2006. Hector DeLeon is with the Harris County Clerk’s office and says they’ve been able to round-up 824 machines for early voting, compared
to 752 that were available four years ago.
“Voters should expect just a normal voting experience during the early voting period. They’re going to have the same complement of voting equipment that they had four years ago. During the 12 days of early voting, we have the same hours of operation and in fact the only significant difference from the last gubernatorial election is that we actually have four more early voting locations available to the voters.”
Now instead of 33 early voting locations, there will be 37 across Harris County. In Texas, during early voting, voters can cast their ballots at any of the locations, not just in their precincts. DeLeon says those locations can be found at HarrisVotes.com.
“There’s a link that says “early voting locations” and if provides the actual locations and addresses, but this year we actually have an Adobe Acrobat map that has a find, a search capacity and you insert your zip code or your precinct, click enter and it will go right to that location. The idea is to help voters visualize where their nearest early voting location is situated in comparison to where they are.”
DeLeon says even though there are more races on this year’s ballot, it’s actually shorter than the one in 2006, with a total of 175 items. That compares to 193 items four years ago when there were far more propositions on the ballot. Polls open at 8 am Monday morning and stay open until 4:30.
Voiced by Wendy Siegle and written by Jack Williams.