Valley officials reflect on election night

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (ValleyCentral) — Election Day is now in the books across the valley, and leaders from both Hidalgo and Cameron counties say that overall, the night went smoothly, but there are still improvements to be made for future elections.

In Cameron County, Elections Administrator Remi Garza says that, for the most part, the night went according to plan.

Garza says turnout was higher than expected, with more than 24,000 ballots cast and a voter turnout of nearly 10.5%, a 2% increase compared to previous elections.

He adds that they will be working to improve the electronic system used to release live results. Garza says they had been testing the system but found that it confused voters, so they reverted to their original method of releasing results through PDFs on the county website.

“We’re trying to work with the vendor to see what we can accommodate to this new system so that the numbers are readily available in a nice format that the voters can access, but we just want to make sure that it isn’t confusing,” Garza said.

Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez says voter turnout was their biggest concern.

According to the Hidalgo County website, out of more than 400,000 registered voters, just under 38,000 ballots were cast.

Judge Cortez adds that the reason election results were not released until close to 10 p.m. was that voters were still in line at several polling locations well past closing time. He explains that, by law, results cannot be released until the last ballot has been processed. Cortez says this issue could be solved if more people voted during the early voting period.

ValleyCentral reached out to Hidalgo County Elections Administrator Hilda Salinas, but her office said she was unable to comment due to post-election procedures.