Tom Green Co. Elections Administrator Vona Hudson said her team is ready for the upcoming elections, and she is confident in the systems officials have in place to ensure election integrity.

“You know, we have been blessed,” she said. “We have not had the same problems as some other counties have, where people have quit because of threats, and that’s been to our county’s benefit, for sure.

“We’ve heard about other offices receiving lots of threats, and things like that, and we feel very fortunate to not be in that boat.”

Hudson said the 87th Legislature’s Senate Bill 1, which was signed into law in September of 2021, mandated several changes, including upgrades to voting equipment that will produce voter-verifiable paper ballots and ensure an auditable trail.

Local officials made that possible before the first voting of 2022 was scheduled to take place in January.

In December 2021, the county opted to pay roughly $673,000 for Hart InterCivic’s upgraded Verity 2.5, which includes Verity Touch Writer Duo, Verity Scan, and Verity Central, and 100-percent of that expense was to be covered through the Secretary of State’s office as a funded mandate.

While many Tom Green County voters have used the machines already, Hudson said it will be new to some voters.

“What’s happens now is that everyone gets a paper ballot,” she said. “We converted to a paper-based system, where you will still be voting on the machine, but it prints a paper ballot.

“Just as before, you will get an access code, but now you will also get a sheet of paper, and you will walk over to the machine, put in your paper, enter your code and then make your selections.

“It will let you review your choices on the machine, and then print the ballot, and you make sure it’s showing everything correctly, and then you will hand it in, and that’s the point where it’s actually kept.”

Hudson said the county also is well equipped to help voters keep a close eye on election proceedings, as they were able to add live feeds covering key locations during election counting procedures.

“We’ve also had that in place since the first election after S.B. 1,” she explained. “I was blessed to have my IT person be able to get everything in place, and so we’ve had the camera feeds showing our Central Count – which is only activated when we are actually in there, performing central-count functions – and then there’s one in the area where the Early Voting Ballot Board works, where we sort the ballots.”

Hudson said in addition to processing applications to vote, the office is busy keeping track of each mail-in ballot request, which requires some extra time.

“We’re required to keep track of each step in the process,” Hudson said. “If a person is getting a ballot by mail, we have to track that request, we have to track that we entered them for that ballot, and we have to keep track of whether the ballot came back.”

Hudson also said several voters have been surprised to find out election officials are not allowed to hand a mail-in ballot to anyone other than the intended eligible voter.

“If someone comes in and requests a ballot by mail for themselves and their spouse, I can only give the one who came in person a ballot” she explained. “I can’t give one to anyone else… If someone calls for a mail-in ballot, I have to speak with the actual voter.”

Hudson wants to remind first-time voters and new residents that there is still time to get registered before deadline Tuesday, Oct. 11, and anyone who is unsure of their voter status should check with the office as there can be unpredictable impediments that would cause a problem come Election Day.

“You know, we have folks who’ve been registered for 40- or 50-years, and used a driver’s license number on their voter registration forever,” she said “Now they’re not driving anymore, and they have a new personal ID, so they are submitting forms with the new ID number which does not match-up with the previous information.”

Hudson said it’s best to get things resolved as early as possible.

Hudson also encouraged any local residents who have moved into town since the last election to update their current address, enabling them to vote on the City of San Angelo ballot proposition.

According to information from Austin-based Hart InterCivic, the hybrid Verity Duo System is a touchscreen ballot-marking device that creates a paper vote record.

Unlike other systems, Verity tabulates votes from human-verifiable information, rather than black-box barcodes or QR codes, and offers several unique security features.

External cards, drives or other devices cannot be inserted by voters into any Hart voting device, nor can executable code be hidden and run from voting system media cards.

Verity devices have built-in features to prevent physical tampering, such as keyed locks, tamper-evident seals, and non-standard ports that only allow Hart’s proprietary connections.

The devices also have non-standard electrical wiring in strategic areas, and are equipped with two-factor authentication devices to secure access to critical election management functions.

The county offers two-minute Verity Duo voting machine video link on its Elections website, at https://www.tomgreencountytx.gov/page/ele.ElectionsHome