x
Breaking News
More () »

Election night returns in just after midnight despite glitches

There were delays and a few glitches on election night, but in the end, Nueces County got its election returns out and finalized just after midnight.

There were delays and a few glitches on election night, but in the end, Nueces County got its election returns out and finalized just after midnight.

County Judge Loyd Neal said with a record shattering vote total of nearly 107,000 ballots and a new election system of voting centers instead of traditional precincts, those glitches were bound to happen.

The judge sounded a positive note despite complaints from some of the spectators, candidates and their supporters Tuesday night, many wondering why the early votes weren't up soon after the polls closed as has been done in the past; but there is an explanation to what happened.

Judge Neal is a veteran of many elections and is understanding of the fact that things like glitches can and will happen.

"These ladies and these people in the county clerk's office have been working for weeks trying to get this going," Neal said. "When you have this many ballots at one time and, as I said it was a record number of ballots here, sometimes the system takes a little while to getting working correctly."

Even former County Clerk Diana Barrera said this year's voter participation was a total surprise.

Many of the spectators complained out loud that the tallies were based on the old 127-precinct system and not the new 92 election centers.

"You shouldn't even look at precincts like that because we can't look at precincts that way anymore, although I know it said that," Nueces County Clerk Kara Sands said.

Sands tried to explain how the vote count was being done and at one point said there were still up to 30 polling centers waiting to be counted.

"Whoever was calling the race, don't call the race," Sands said. "These races aren't over."

Before You Leave, Check This Out