BEE COUNTY, Texas — A group of folks who want Bee County to return to using paper ballots for elections asked for it at Thursday night's hearing.
There were plenty of folks who heard from Bee County Elections Administrator Laura Warnix who defended the use of electronic voting machines. She said the County has used it since 2006 and the equipment is secure and cannot be hacked.
She said that counting paper ballots is extremely time consuming and opens voting to the possibility for fraud.
The Republican Party Chair agreed and said it'd be a huge mistake to go back to the paper ballot. However, there were a number of people in the audience who disagreed with that.
"We need to understand hand counting paper ballots have a great tendency for fraud," Warnix said. "The voter intent is not easy to understand."
Texas Senate Bill 598 was recently passed and requires a verifiable paper trail with the use of a machine voting. The County is looking to get a new voting machine that will print out the paper trail.
The bill requires all jurisdictions to make the shift by 2026.
It's important to note the County hasn't purchased the new machines yet and they took no action following the hearing.