Dallas Officials Call for Super Tuesday Vote Recount

The Dallas County Elections Administrator has requested a manual recount after 44 thumb drives containing uncounted votes were discovered.

Dallas County Elections Administrator Toni Pippins-Poole has officially requested the courts allow her office to conduct a manual recount of votes from Super Tuesday after discovering 44 thumb drives with uncounted votes, making up nearly 10% of votes collected during this past week's election. Pippins-Poole issued a statement on Saturday, saying,

On March 6, 2020, I filed a petition with the District Court, in my official capacity as Dallas County Elections Administrator, to re-open the Central Counting Station for a recount and re-tabulation of the Dallas County March 3, 2020 Democratic and Republican primary elections. During the reconciliation process after Election Day, it was determined that there were discrepancies with thumb drives from 44 of the precinct scanner and tabulator machines. Of the 44 thumb drives, 16 were not received in a timely manner to the Elections Department and 28 were from voting machines not scheduled to be used but were used by volunteer election officials. When Dallas County procured new election equipment, we ensured that paper ballot records were included with our electronic system. With this paper backup, and in consultation with the Texas Secretary of State, I have asked the District Court to allow Dallas County to authorize the recount of the paper ballots through the central counting station tabulator. If the Court grants this petition, the Dallas County Elections Department will post notice of the recount and make the results available to the public as quickly as possible.

Dallas County Commissioner J.J. Koch spoke to WFAA, calling for Pippins-Poole's resignation,

We need to investigate this entirely, immediately. The time has absolutely come for Toni Pippins-Poole to step down as elections administrator. I deeply regret that this is happening in Dallas County right now. There’s already enough questions about our ability to serve the people of Dallas County. This is tremendously damaging to our local democracy.

However, Carol Donovan, chairwoman of the Dallas County Democratic Party, called Koch's request premature, indicating some of the responsibility of the situation falls on the local Republican Party,

It is unfortunate that Commissioner JJ Koch has prematurely requested the resignation of Dallas County Elections Administrator Toni Pippins-Poole before any investigation and before the court has ruled on her petition for recount. Much of the confusion and delays were caused by the failure of the local Republican Party to staff even half of the Dallas County vote centers.