Austin Mayor Kirk Watson kept enough of an edge to avoid a runoff (again) this week when a small number of provisional ballots were added to the total vote count.
If you're wondering how this happened, you're not alone. This is actually part of the final stages in the election process to make sure every vote is counted. Rest assured, it's normal and not part of a nefarious plot to disrupt the integrity of the election.
Here's what happened. Late last week, voter registration staff were double-checking to make sure all provisional ballots had been processed and entered. This is one of the final steps of many to ensure accuracy. During the process, the Travis County Voter Registration staff found that 75 provisional ballots had not been fully processed.
Provisional ballots are ballots that are given to people who want to vote but have a discrepancy with their voter registration. The person is allowed to cast a provisional ballot, but it must go through a verification process before it is counted. It can take several days after Election Day to process provisional ballots, but that's normal and necessary to ensure only registered voters are casting ballots.
After consulting the Texas Secretary of State, Travis County Clerk Dyana Limon-Mercado told KUT those ballots were processed and 20 of them were recorded as votes.
Joshua Blank, the director of research for the Texas Politics Project at UT Austin, said these systems are in place for a reason.
“There are a number of procedures and processes in place to make sure that every legal vote is counted and that’s what we should want,” Blank said. “Ultimately, when votes are found, even though that might feel strange, what that means is that the process is actually working.”
Most of the time these additional ballots don’t affect the outcome because the races are determined by a large number of votes. But this time around, the process got additional attention because of a razor-thin margin in the mayor’s race.
Blank said that doesn't mean the process is nefarious, it just ensures an accurate outcome.
Late last week, Mayor Kirk Watson declared an outright victory, narrowly avoiding a runoff election.
Mayoral candidates need a majority of votes, or 50% plus one vote, to be declared the winner outright. If no one passes this threshold, the two candidates with the most votes head to a runoff.
After adding in overseas military ballots, certain domestic mail-in ballots and provisional ballots – which were valid through Nov. 12 – Watson earned just enough votes to avoid a runoff with Carmen Llanes Pulido, who had the second most votes.
On Monday, when the clerk discovered the additional, not fully processed provisional ballots, that brought the race back into question. There were 20 new votes added to the final tallies, and 13 included votes in the Austin mayor’s race.
Travis County data showed Watson still earned just over 50% of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff against Llanes Pulido, after those ballots were counted. The city canvassed the votes Tuesday, making the results official.
Llanes Pulido can still call for a recount but has not said if she will. The deadline to do so is Thursday at 2 p.m., according the Texas Secretary of State.
A spokesperson with Travis County Voter Registrar Bruce Elfant’s office said in a written statement “as with every election, processes will be reviewed for any necessary modifications to increase efficiency and foster confidence in our open and accurate elections. The public should feel confident that all eligible votes were counted. We are thankful current systems revealed this issue and it was able to be rectified.”
