Thousands of Dallas County voters were given wrong ballots – did it help pass Proposition U?

Dallas County elections officials say a software issue during early voting led to more than 3900 voters getting the wrong ballot to fill out for the November election.

Some City of Dallas residents received ballots that didn’t allow them to vote on city propositions – and some Dallas County residents were given city ballots.

City leaders have expressed concern that the discrepancy may have impacted the outcome of local elections, including the vote on Proposition U, which required the city to hire 900 new police officers.

In front of the Dallas City Council on Tuesday, Dallas County Elections Administrator Heider Garcia said a canvas of the November election found issues.

“What we know is because of the software issue we had on the first day of early voting, a number of voters across the county received a ballot for a precinct they didn’t live in,” said Garcia.

Garcia said an error with the county’s poll book vendor caused a total of 3,966 Dallas County voters to receive a ballot that didn’t match their precinct.

More than 1,700 of those people lived inside the Dallas city limits and got the wrong ballot, Garcia said.

“Which means they voted on some things they were not supposed to vote, or they didn’t vote in things they were supposed to vote,” said Garcia.

Garcia also told NBC 5 that 190 ballots from a polling place in DeSoto were unaccounted for due to the software issue.

The rash of wrong ballots is now causing concern among some City of Dallas leaders.

“Because I’m aware of someone outside of the City of Dallas who had the Dallas city propositions on their ballot,” said Gay Donnell Willis, Dallas City Council rep for District 13.

18 propositions were on the ballot this year for City of Dallas residents. 16 of them passed, including the controversial Proposition U, a measure that will require the city to hire 900 new police officers.

Garcia said Proposition U passed by around 2900 votes – less than the number of Dallas County voters who received the wrong ballot in the election.

“There is no cure for this,” said Willis. “So someone has voted on the City of Dallas propositions for or against, who does not live in the City of Dallas, and then we’re going to be expected to pay the bill.”

NBC 5 took those concerns to Garcia, who said he didn’t believe the number of incorrect ballots influenced the outcome of the vote on Prop U.

“You would still have to find a lot more than that to make a case that every single person who got the wrong ballot would have voted one way or another,” said Garcia.

Some city leaders disagreed, telling NBC 5 that this issue did cast doubt on the outcome of the vote.

“So what action are we going to take given that these discrepancies happened?” asked Willis.

In response to concerns about the incorrect ballots, Dallas City Council members were told by the City Secretary that there was no step they could take in today’s meeting to address the results of the election, and the city council voted to certify the November vote totals.

City leaders did voice support for a meeting to be held at a later date to discuss the issue and steps they could take to prevent similar problems in future elections.

The Dallas County Elections Administrator told NBC 5 that one step the county would consider is cutting ties with the vendor of the software that caused this problem, which could cost up to $3 million to replace.

NBC 5 reached out to that vendor, Election Systems & Software, for a response. We are waiting to hear back.