Top Republican leaders in Tarrant County, Texas, are pushing for a dramatic overhaul of how ballots will be counted in the upcoming March 2026 primary—a move that could force voters to cast ballots only at their assigned precincts and abandon the county’s voting machines in favor of hand-counting paper ballots. The proposal, first outlined in a Tarrant County GOP newsletter on November 16, 2025, has set off a firestorm of debate, drawing sharp criticism from both sides of the political aisle and raising questions about accuracy, cost, and the potential for chaos at the polls.
The idea isn’t isolated to Tarrant County. According to The Texas Observer, Republicans in at least six Texas counties—including Dallas, Denton, Eastland, Hays, Gillespie, and Orange—are proposing or have already approved hand-counting ballots for the 2026 midterm primaries. The push for hand-counting has gained traction among some GOP activists since Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election, fueled by conspiracy theories alleging that voting machines are vulnerable to tampering or manipulation.
Despite these claims, there’s no evidence of widespread or coordinated election fraud in Tarrant County or elsewhere in Texas. Critics argue that the proposed changes would be a step backward for election security and efficiency. "We have computers for a reason—they can do things more accurately and faster," Janet Mattern, president of the League of Women Voters of Tarrant County, told the Fort Worth Report. "This would be a whole different process."
Supporters of hand-counting, however, remain undeterred. Beverly Foley, a North Texas activist who has audited more than 250,000 ballots and leads efforts to convince GOP leaders to switch to hand-counting, insists the process is both feasible and more secure. "When you see the actual paper, and you’ve counted that actual paper, you know what the count is," Foley said. "And with machine results, you don’t really know that." Foley has even helped draft a proposed executive order for former President Trump that would mandate hand-counting ballots nationwide in 2026—a move she admits would likely face stiff legal challenges, as election regulation is a state responsibility under the Constitution.
In Texas, political parties—not the government—run Election Day voting in primaries. This unique arrangement means the Republican executive committee in Tarrant County could make the switch to hand-counting without approval from the Tarrant County Elections Office or the Commissioners Court. However, if the GOP moves to precinct-level voting, state law would require the Democratic Party to follow suit, though Democrats wouldn’t be forced to hand-count ballots.
The practical implications of the change are daunting. Precinct-level voting would require about 700 polling locations in Tarrant County alone—a massive increase from the nearly 200 locations used in the March 2024 primary. Each location must be staffed with Spanish and Vietnamese speakers as mandated by state law. The cost of voting machines, about $1,000 per polling place, might be avoided, but the expense of hiring and training hundreds of additional workers would far outweigh any savings. As The Texas Observer notes, Dallas County, with its 2.6 million residents, would need at least 2,160 workers—each paid around $15 per hour—to manage the hand-counting process.
Recent history offers a cautionary tale. In 2024, Gillespie County—a much smaller jurisdiction with under 28,000 residents—tried hand-counting about 8,000 primary ballots. The result? Errors in almost every precinct, with one election judge admitting to miscounting in seven different races. It took all weekend to reconcile vote totals, and 12 out of 13 precincts reported incorrect numbers. Yet, some proponents brushed off these mistakes. David Treibs, who pushed for and participated in the hand-count, said, "So there were two ballots, and I just didn’t add them up. So I would have had to add 450 and two, and it would have been 452 and I didn’t. I just forgot to fill it in. So I don’t really think that’s something that’s going to shut down the election and it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, he didn’t add 450 and two and come up with 452 and now that means the whole election was a failure.’ Well, that’s ridiculous."
Human error isn’t the only concern. Texas law requires all ballots to be counted within 24 hours of polls closing. Election Day turnout in Tarrant County is significant—about 69,000 Republicans and 36,000 Democrats voted on Election Day in March 2024. Meeting the legal deadline with hand-counting would be a logistical nightmare, critics say. "Everything would be different," said Clint Ludwig, Tarrant County’s Elections Administrator, who declined to estimate how many precincts could be consolidated or provide a timeline for implementing such sweeping changes.
Hand-counting isn’t just a Texas experiment. Nye County, Nevada, tried it as a “test” in 2022, and the initial hand-count was off by an estimated 25 percent, according to The Texas Observer. Still, the idea persists among those convinced that machines are the real source of election insecurity.
Financial questions loom large. While political parties pay for their primaries, Texas only partially reimburses them. In 2023, state officials warned party chairs that the state wouldn’t cover higher-than-usual costs. This means the increased expense of precinct-level voting and hand-counting—potentially involving hundreds of additional staff and volunteers—would fall squarely on the parties themselves. Foley argues that relying on unpaid volunteers could offset some of the costs, but the scale of the operation remains daunting.
These proposed changes come on the heels of other controversial moves in Tarrant County. Before the November 4, 2025, election, county commissioners voted along party lines to cut more than 100 polling locations, particularly in urban areas with higher concentrations of Black and Latino voters. While Republican commissioners claimed the reduction would save about $1 million, opponents decried it as voter suppression. Despite the cuts, voter turnout reached 17 percent of registered voters—higher than in previous odd-year elections.
Calls to hand-count ballots have grown louder since 2020, fueled by skepticism and misinformation about voting machines. Tarrant County Republican Judge Tim O’Hare, who was elected in 2022 after campaigning on election security, has launched several initiatives to tighten procedures. However, he has stopped short of endorsing the GOP’s latest proposal for hand-counting and precinct-level voting. O’Hare established the Election Integrity Task Force, which investigates complaints of voter fraud, but nearly three years later, the task force has not produced any charges or prosecutions.
The future of the proposal in Tarrant County hinges on local GOP leadership. Outgoing party chairman Bo French, who resigned on November 12, 2025, after repeatedly promoting claims of election insecurity and fraud, has left his successor to decide whether to pursue the changes. French’s rhetoric has drawn criticism from Democrats, who argue the changes would disenfranchise voters and create chaos. "We cannot be beholden to a party that’s trying to shackle us to things which are inefficient, which disenfranchise voters, which are wildly expensive, which slow down results," said Allison Campolo, chair of the Tarrant County Democratic Party.
As local Republicans prepare to elect a new chair on November 22, 2025, the fate of hand-counting and precinct-level voting in Tarrant County—and perhaps beyond—remains uncertain. What’s clear is that the debate over how best to secure and count votes is far from settled, with both practical and philosophical stakes for the future of Texas elections.
