Despite fewer ballots than in 2024, the Gillespie County GOP's second hand count takes nearly as long

FREDERICKSBURG, Texas — When Gillespie County Republicans abandoned voting machines and hand-counted ballots in the 2024 primary election, it took until 4 a.m., required corrections in nearly every precinct, and fractured the local Republican Party. And in 2026, they did it again.

On Tuesday, election workers once again gathered in this Hill Country county to tally Republican primary votes by hand. This time, the counting and tallying stretched until nearly 3 a.m., and county election officials did not send their report to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office until after 5 a.m. Whether the results are accurate may not be clear for days.

Research shows hand-counting ballots typically takes more workers and time than machine tabulation and produces more discrepancies, though both methods can be accurate. Supporters say it increases transparency and confidence. Republicans here — and in Eastland County, which also hand-counted its primary ballots this year — opted into the more laborious process amid mistrust of voting machines in the wake of claims by President Donald Trump and others that they manipulated votes in the 2020 election. No evidence has emerged to support that.

The Gillespie County GOP’s undertaking this year, though, was not as ambitious as two years ago. After determining they did not have enough workers to hand-count every ballot cast in this year’s primary, party leaders scaled back their plan. Unlike in 2024, when early votes were also counted by hand, this year those ballots were tabulated by machine. Only Election Day ballots were counted by hand at each of the county’s 13 precincts.




https://www.votebeat.org/texas/2026/03/04/gillespie-county-republicans-hand-count-2026-primary-election/