Despite new leadership, the election problems in Harris County continue.
Voting machines experience problems yesterday. That led to a court extending the voting hours until 8PM last night. But the Texas Supreme Court reversed the lower court ruling, meaning that votes cast in the extra hour will not be counted, pending review.
On top of that, Harris County, with the longest ballot in the state, ran out of paper ballots at multiple voting locations. New Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum was doing his best to spin last night.
"By and large, at 90% of all polling locations, voters had a good experience. We will build on that," Tatum said.
State Senator Paul Bettencourt was livid about the problems when he talked to Jimmy Barrett during KTRH's Election Night coverage.
"I've never seen the public more angry. This is just making people more infuriated. They go to a poll, and it's closed because of a lack of paper.
As of 3am, we do not have an official winner in the tight race for Harris County Judge between incumbent Democrat Lina Hidalgo and Republican challenger Alexandra del Moral Mealer. Hidalgo has la lead of 13-thousand votes.
"Every single vote needs to be counted," Hidalgo said. "We're going to be watching,
Mealer was feeling good about where she was at before calling it a night.
"I feel great. I'll feel better when I know the full result," she stated.
The problems also mean we don't have a full count on the races for judges in criminal court. All of them were within two percentage points of each other at last count.
You can look at the latest Harris County numbers. HERE.