Travis County primary election contract reached, county-wide voting to remain

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Contract negotiations between parties heading into the Travis County primary election were unusually contentious as the Travis County Republican Party chair said he was seeking a more secure election.

"In the past we have worked less effectively than I would have liked to have gotten additional election integrity into our primary contracts," Matt Mackowiak said. "This time, we have the strongest election integrity provisions in Travis County history."

Tuesday, Travis County Commissioners approved a contract between the parties, which was agreed on late Monday night, according to those involved in negotiations. In that contract there are roughly half a dozen changes on the Republican side of things, including having the option to hand count Republican votes and get additional information from the clerk on who voted where.

"We will have cast vote record reports and other reports that are required to be provided now by a vote center location basis in addition to county-wide," Mackowiak said.

The Republican party will have until the end of the year to figure out if they have the people power and resources to conduct hand-counting of early voting, according to those involved in the negotiations.

Getting to a point both sides could sign off on took longer than the state's recommended deadline to get to that agreement. The chair of the Democratic party said at the crux of the issue was hand marking and counting ballots, being at odds with county-wide voting, which Travis County has done for years.

"Obviously you can't have 50 different ballot types at every single locations it's nearly impossible to facilitate that operationally," Katie Naranjo, the chair for the Travis County Democratic Party, said.

In the end, both sides said they're happy with where they landed for their voters. And ultimately said when you show up to vote, there will be very minimal changes.

"For 95% of the voter experience, it will stay the same," Naranjo said.