We spent a couple of hours last week catching up with County/District Clerk Lisa Johnson, who also serves as this county’s official voter registrar and is responsible for conducting countywide special and general elections, and for handling absentee voting. This year, Johnson’s task has grown to encompass the city council election. Originally scheduled for May 2, that election was postponed by gubernatorial executive order to safeguard the public during the coronavirus pandemic.

When we entered her office at the Hemphill County Courthouse last Tuesday, Johnson was clearly frustrated. Already poised to mail out ballots, she had just received word that the Texas Supreme Court ordered Green Party candidates to be restored to all November ballots after Democrats had successfully sued in August to remove them. That order meant county elections offices would have to update their overseas and military ballots before Saturday’s mailing deadline, and send new, corrected ballots to replace any that had already been sent.

“Some counties had already mailed them out,” Johnson said. “It’s just frustrating that you’re right up to your deadline to mail them….” One clerk said, ‘What does this look like that, right off the bat, they’ve got a second ballot?’ And people are going to say, ‘Oh, they sent me two ballots.’”

Johnson explained that those elections officers would have to send out a letter explaining that it is a corrected ballot, and directing the recipient to destroy the one they had already received. “But it’s just confusing. It’s already gotten off to an interesting start,” she said.

That was the perfect opening for our interview, in which I asked Johnson to describe the voting process she oversees, and to dispel some of the rampant rumors about the unreliability of that process and its vulnerability to potential voter fraud.

Comparing this election to the one four years ago, Johnson said she had not seen an increase in early voting or requests for ballots by mail. We wondered whether she thought that was because people aren’t aware of the election, or because people aren’t concerned about voting in person?

“Some of the comments I get are that people have confidence in how our elections are run locally, but they don’t have as much confidence in how it’s done in other states. I feel good about what they’re saying about what we do locally, so that’s good to hear.”

You talked about checks and balances. Can you tell us what they entail?

“We have to keep a roster of applications for ballots by mail, and we have to log voter information: when their ballot is mailed, and when we get it back. The voter has to sign their application for ballot by mail, they have to sign the return envelope that the ballot comes back in, and the early-voting ballot board compares the signatures on the application and the return envelope before that ballot is counted.”

Those rules are state-mandated, Johnson said, but they vary somewhat from state-to-state, which may help explain the overall distrust of the voting system in this country.

“They may not call it an early-voting ballot board, but I know there are a lot of checks and balances in every state. If people know what the process is and what those checks and balances are, it gives them confidence in the way we hold elections.”

Do you feel that you haven’t had an uptick in vote by mail applications here because people aren’t really worried about being exposed to COVID at the polls?

“We had a really good turnout for the primary runoff, as far as runoffs go. At the time, our numbers were extremely low as far as the virus, so people weren’t too afraid about getting sick. It’s not higher, I don’t think, from the last presidential election, but we’re approaching that number. We might even hit it.” Remind us of your early-voting hours. “Early voting starts Oct. 13, runs through Oct. 30, from 8 am-5 pm with the exception of Thursday, Oct. 22 and Oct. 29, when we’ll do 7 am-7 pm extra voting hours. We have plenty of opportunities for people to vote in person. The deadline to register to vote is Oct. 5. The deadline for ballot-by-mail applications is Friday, Oct. 23. I would encourage people to apply before that deadline, just to allow for plenty of time. We encourage that on a regular election year. We haven’t seen any issues with our mail, so far, and I don’t really anticipate any. But in my mind, that deadline is probably a little too close to the actual election date, because we have to receive ballots by mail back from those voters at the close of polls on Election Day. People just need to apply and get those back as quick as they can.”

How often do you get ballots by mail too late?

“We’ve had, I would say, less than five since I’ve been running elections…for the last 10 years.”

Were they postmarked late?

“Unless it’s military or overseas voters— which I don’t think any of those were—I believe they just waited too late to reply or didn’t return their ballots in a timely manner.”

Do you count the ballots by mail when you receive them?

“We keep them in a locked ballot box. We’re not allowed to count them until Election Day, and we’re not allowed to release any results for early voting until after the polls close. We typically try to get the early votes and ballots by mail counted prior to the polls closing that day, so we’re ready to count those Election Day ballots right away. The rules vary a lot from state to state.”

How easy would it be for somebody to vote by mail and vote in person?

“Because we use the poll pads to check in voters, we enter the name of the voters that have applied for a ballot by mail so that when the poll-worker searches for the voter, and pulls their name up, there would be a notation on the line with their name that says Absentee Ballot Mailed or Absentee Ballot Returned. The poll-worker would know if that person had applied for a BBM and if it had been returned.”

“There’s a process the voter would have to go through if they wanted to cancel their application for a ballot by mail, or if they wanted to cancel the ballot they had already mailed back. The early-voting ballot board might have to make a determination on which of those ballots was counted. It’s possible for someone to apply for a ballot by mail, and change their mind and want to vote in person, but there will be a form with their signature if they have received their ballot, if they returned it, and if they signed a form canceling it. There’s a lot of checks and balances in place if someone has changed their mind.”

That sounds complicated.

“It’s not an easy process, but it’s a process that we always follow. Our poll-workers know to look in their printed guidelines, to make sure they’re following that process to a T. And they are very diligent about it.”

Have you had any trouble recruiting pollworkers?

“No. So far, all of our appointed election judges have said they are OK with working the polling places. We’ve had a couple of election clerks, who work under authority of the election judge, who have had some health issues. The others are willing to work. We’re not short-handed. We have two poll-workers who have worked previous elections that are well-trained and understand how the process works. They’ll be ready to go. We will have election training again prior to the November election.”

Do you have a pool of new and younger people who are being trained or who might be willing to be trained?

“I would say I have maybe a half dozen names of people who are willing to work elections. They are younger than our current workers, but they are not young. I think it is going to continue to be the trend that it’s people who are 50 and older—and a lot of them 60 and older—that are willing to work the elections, but we have election workers that are in their 70s and 80s.”

It makes a long, old day for someone.

“It does. It is a long and, in some ways, stressful day, though our election workers are still very enthusiastic about working the elections. They absolutely make the best of a long, tedious day.”

Have you had any complaints of long waits to cast a ballot in Hemphill County?

“I have never had any complaints about long lines. The longest I’ve seen was in the 2016 presidential election, and I would say there were 3-4 in line at any one time. We’ve never had a line that went outside the building. In the 2016 election, over 50 percent of the voters who voted in that election, voted early, and we still didn’t have any long lines. I really expect that will be the case again. Except for undecided voters, people are anxious to vote. They want to get their vote cast and be done.”

Is there any confusion in the public about the general election and the city council election being combined?

“The city had mailed out ballots by mail, and they got ballots back. There were a few unreturned. We are required to send a letter to the voters who had already voted in the city council race, explaining that, because of the postponed election, the city and county have decided to do a joint election. If the voter had already returned their ballot from the city election in May, and if they return this ballot that has the city election on it with the county/ state/federal election, this will be the ballot that is counted. If the voter doesn’t mark the ballot for the November election, then their vote that was returned for the May election will be counted.”

How often are the voter rolls purged, and what are the conditions for purging someone’s names from the rolls?

“I just became the voter registrar in January. We’re still learning all of the parts of that, but one of the notices from the Secretary of State was about purging voters that are designated as “in suspense.” Typically, that means that voter hasn’t voted in the last 3-4 elections. That’s typically because someone has moved and hasn’t changed their driver’s license or voter registration, but we haven’t received anything that allows us to take them off the list yet. We are not allowed to purge those lists until after this November election. You don’t want someone taken off the list that still lives here and still is qualified to vote. Are you given latitude in making these decisions?

“No. There are only certain circumstances in which we are allowed to remove someone. If we have voter cards that come back to us, we have to do an address verification. We have to mail a card to that voter and ask if they have a new address, and what that address is so that we know if they are still an eligible voter in Hemphill County. If we are going to take them off our voter list, we have to send them a letter saying, you are going to be removed from our voter list unless we hear from you. There is a long process for everything.”

And all of that is done through the United States Postal Service, correct?

Yes.

So the USPS is essential to the business of voting?

It is absolutely essential to it.

Are you concerned about delays in delivery with the USPS?

“I’m not at all concerned about it. We’ve only ever had one issue with a ballot by mail in the 10 years I’ve been here. A ballot was returned to a voter. It didn’t get here in time to be counted. But I got a call from our local postmaster. I got a call from someone higher up in the USPS, who said, ‘This was our mistake. It should have never happened. We will be even more diligent to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen.’”

“So I have complete confidence in the USPS, at least where we are, because we communicate with our local postmaster, and we get lots of information from the USPS. They constantly reach out to us to see if we are having any issues or problems, and they do everything they can to make sure that those issues are addressed.”

“It did concern me to hear that there were changes being made in some areas of the country prior to a general election—that machines were being decommissioned that would affect how the mail is processed. I feel like those issues have been dealt with for the most part, and I haven’t heard of that type of thing happening where we are. Still, even across the country, I have a great deal of confidence in the postal system.”

I hope you are right. We have been very concerned.

“Well, we should be concerned. We have to be concerned about our democracy and that steps are being taken to protect it. It shouldn’t just be a given that democracies happen, and they maintain. It takes all of us being informed and voting to maintain it.”

Johnson said she had had some questions about ballots by mail—even from one of her election workers, who asked whether she felt like it was safe and would work well.

“I totally do,” she said. “I was a lot concerned to see that in Georgia, people had voted by mail and then went to the polls in significant numbers. I feel like people were confused about what the process was, and they wanted to make sure their vote was getting counted. I understand that. But it would be better if people asked questions of their election officials before they did that. It is illegal to try to vote twice.”

“People need to do what they can to be informed about the process in the state in the county where they live. If I hear something on the news that says this happened in this state, well, even if that doesn’t sound right to me because I live in Texas, it doesn’t mean it’s not the legal process in that state. I have to be careful about the judgments I make about the voting process in other states.”

Is there a lack of clarity on Texas’ laws for ballots by mail?

“I think there is probably some confusion about the deadlines. In Texas, there are five different deadlines. So when it’s reported on the news that it’s after Election Day, and they’re still counting ballots by mail, it’s legal. It’s what the law says. Is it confusing? Of course, it is. It’s confusing to me, and I know what the laws are. But it’s legal.

At what point that you get a ballot by mail do you not count it?

“I have to do my research and make sure that if I get a ballot after Election Day, is that going to be counted. I have had to call the Secretary of State’s office to verify that I am correct. It’s not easy, and we’re in a small county. I can’t even imagine being in a county with hundreds of thousands of voters. But those counties have elections departments. They have hundreds of people working on elections, and those officials are doing their due diligence to make sure they are following the law.”

“I have yet to meet an election official in Texas who I didn’t have complete confidence in their intention to follow the law. When I won my election, the person I defeated in the election counted those ballots. If I can trust that person to count a ballot that they are on, I can trust them to count every ballot.”

That says a lot. We don’t seem to be real long on trust in this country these days. It is sad that we’re having to say these things.

“It is very frustrating as an election official to work so hard at doing an election well, that’s not easy to do, and to hear so many people talk about rigged elections or voter fraud. It’s hard not to take that personally, because we work so hard at making elections as efficient and correct.”

“But we have to keep just being as transparent as we can be, and keep trying to inform voters about what the process is and how much confidence we have in that process. It’s frustrating that it just continues to get harder to have an election, but whatever we have to do to keep elections local. As much as I would like for someone else to be holding these elections, it gives me confidence because we have local election officials, because we can point to the person and say this is the person who is responsible to hold a good and fair election. I want it to stay that way.”

“I hear things sometimes that are very alarming, and I try to learn more about them. That is what we all should be doing, trying to learn more about it, trying to make sense of it, trying to use credible sources, which is not an easy thing right now, and I understand that. We have an election page on our website (http://www.co.hemphill.tx.us/page/ hemphill.ElectionInformation), and we continually update and add to that website so that voters can go there and find information and results and answers to questions. We have all kinds of links they can use. We are constantly trying to make that better.”

“I would like to see our voters be as informed as they can and be as careful as they can about what sources they read or listen to, that those are credible sources…that use facts from credible sources. I appreciate you because I think you cover elections better than most newspapers, especially newspapers in a county our size, and I appreciate that you are diligent about your responsibility to keep me and all other elected officials accountable to our public.”

“That is the purpose of the press…to come and ask me the questions that people need the answers to. Even if those questions are sometimes tough, I ought to be able to answer them, and if I can’t, I ought to be able to find the answer. I appreciate that. Because I am not just an election official—I am a voter, and I want to know what the people I have elected are doing. I should be holding them accountable just like you are.”

In closing, Johnson stressed the importance of registering to vote, and her willingness to answer any questions. She encouraged citizens to contact her.

“Registering to vote is a very quick process. You can come in the office, mail directly to my office, or mail to the SOS office and they mail it to us. If anybody has questions about elections, I’m willing to visit with anyone about how it works. I’m happy to answer questions because I’m happy that people are interested in elections, and that they’re willing to find out what the facts and the truth are, and not rely on a source that may not know as much about how elections are run as we do.”

SHINING A LIGHT ON ELECTION 2020

Coming in Next Week's Canadian Record: The City Council Candidate Q&A, Sample Ballots, and more.

VOTER REGISTRATION DEADLINE: OCT. 5 / START OF EARLY VOTING: OCT. 13