Computer malfunction delays Tarrant County vote count

Tarrant County election results will be delayed several hours due to equipment failures. Tarrant County judge Glen Whitley described the “computer problem” late Tuesday. He said the results recorded in vote scanners used for counts is typically transmitted to a machine to generate unofficial results. But, the machine is malfunctioning and not accumulating that information. Instead, votes will be counted by bringing in the voting machines to a single location and plugging them to transmit the information to a central computer, Whitley said. This is the typical process used to generate official results. Whitley said the county will come up with an official tally of votes, but that could take “four, five, six” hours. Voters are going to “have to wait until we can feel comfortable that we’ve got the correct numbers,” he said. “The integrity of the ballot is the most important thing,” he said.

Earlier Tuesday, the county reported its unofficial early voting numbers. “Computers are great when they work, and they’re crappy when they don’t,” Whitley said, estimating it would be 5 or 6 a.m. before the results are released. In the race for Tarrant County judge, Republican Tim O’Hare and Democrat Deborah Peoples were leading after unofficial results from early voting. O’Hare leads with 57.63% of the Republican vote, while former Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price trails with 34.88%. Byron Bradford has 2.92%, Kristen Collins has 2.52% and Robert Trevor Buker has 2.04%. Peoples, a former chair of the Tarrant County Democratic Party, leads Democrats with 82.83% of the vote to Marvin Sutton’s 17.17% of the vote. Peoples has run for mayor in Fort Worth twice in recent years. She lost the first time to Price in 2019 and again to current Mayor Mattie Parker in 2021’s runoff election. In the race for district attorney, Republican Phil Sorrells and Democrat Tiffany Burks had leads after early voting. Sorrells led the Republican race with 43.44% with Mollee Westfall in second place with 29.13% state Rep. Matt Krause in third with 27.43%. The top two vote-getters will head to a runoff on May 24 if no one receives more than 50% of the vote.