Texas · 2016–2026
A sourced timeline of county efforts to hand-count ballots, expand post-election audits, and reconsider electronic tabulation across Texas.
County map
Select a highlighted county to jump to its documented count, audit, or proposal. County boundaries are from the U.S. Census Bureau, January 2025 vintage.
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The statewide baseline
Throughout the last decade, manual counting remained part of Texas election administration. Under Election Code §127.201, counties that tabulated ballots electronically compared a sample against a hand count after the election. In 2025, Senate Bill 827 renamed this process the Post-Election Hand Count Audit and changed the sampling framework for elections beginning in 2026.
Recent history
Entries combine official state and county records with reporting focused on local election administration.
Counties using electronic systems performed partial manual counts under §127.201. These post-election checks compared selected paper ballots with electronic totals; they were not full recounts and did not replace election-night tabulation.
Texas Election Code §127.201 ↗The Texas Secretary of State selected four large counties for a two-phase review of the November 2020 general election. The work included examination of election records and manual comparisons in selected precincts; the final report documented the scope and county findings.
Party leaders in counties including Gillespie, Dallas, Uvalde, and Travis examined moving away from machine tabulation for the 2024 primary. Gillespie adopted a full hand-count plan. Dallas and Uvalde considered the idea, while Travis chose a narrower sample-count approach. Most counties ultimately concluded that a full count was not feasible because of staffing, cost, and the 24-hour reporting deadline.
The county Republican Party hand-counted more than 8,000 primary ballots across a long ballot. Public records showed about 350 workers logging more than 2,300 hours on election day. Initial results later required corrections in 12 of 13 precincts.
Rather than replacing tabulators, Brazos County election officials expanded hand-count verification and purchased special paper intended to make ballots easier for the public to distinguish. The approach used additional checks while keeping electronic tabulation as the official counting system.
Senate Bill 827 replaced the term “partial manual count” with “Post-Election Hand Count Audit.” Beginning with 2026 elections, the required sample is organized around early-voting and election-day polling locations, with mail ballots still sampled by precinct. The state also published a detailed guide and separate guidance for elections tabulated entirely by hand.
Eastland County Republicans planned to hand-count all GOP primary ballots and recruited roughly 90 workers. The count extended more than 12 hours after polls closed. Gillespie Republicans, unable to recruit enough counters for every ballot, used electronic tabulation for early votes but hand-counted election-day ballots; reconciliation continued into the early morning. Dallas County Republicans considered a hand count but abandoned it before the primary.
For the Senate District 9 runoff, Tarrant County received state authorization to extend its Post-Election Hand Count Audit to all early-voting locations, all election-day locations, and all mail-ballot precincts. The county reported that every hand-count result matched the electronic result.
County index
A compact guide to the counties most often cited in the recent Texas discussion.
| County | Period | Documented effort | Outcome | Cost record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gillespie | 2023–26 | Full 2024 GOP primary count; reduced 2026 count | Conducted | 2024: $27,000+ in election-day counting wages; final total incomplete |
| Eastland | 2025–26 | GOP primary hand count | Conducted | No complete total published; about 90 counters trained |
| Tarrant | 2021–26 | State 2020 review; expanded SD9 runoff audit | Specific 2026 total unknown; elections office said it remained within budget | |
| Collin, Dallas, Harris | 2021–22 | State review of the 2020 general election | Audited | Not isolated in the sources reviewed |
| Brazos | 2024 | Expanded verification and transparency measures | $14,000 additional recurring ballot-paper expense | |
| Dallas | 2023–26 | Full primary hand count considered twice | Not adopted | Cost and staffing cited as barriers; no final project cost incurred |
| Travis | 2023–24 | Broader GOP primary sampling discussed | Limited plan | No reliable total located |
| Uvalde | 2023–24 | Full-count proposal considered | Not adopted | No approved expenditure documented |
| Kerr | 2023–24 | Local full-count proposal and advocacy | Not adopted | About $40,000 labor estimate from a county commissioner; not an appropriation |
Reading the record
A full ballot, selected races, a sample of locations, or only election-day ballots produce very different scopes.
A county party controls parts of its primary; a commissioners court, election custodian, candidate, or the state operates under different authority.
An audit checks tabulation, an original count creates the result, and a recount can formally change an outcome.
This page covers January 2016 through August 2026. It is not an exhaustive inventory of every county’s legally required sample audit. County actions are included when an official record or attributable reporting documents an expanded audit, a full hand count, or a serious local proposal. “Republicans” and “GOP” identify the county party that selected a primary counting method; they do not describe the county government as a whole.