Tarrant County Republicans won’t hand-count ballots during the party’s March primary, members confirmed to the Fort Worth Report on Tuesday.
Party members previously indicated they would move to manually tallying votes in their effort to enhance election security and prevent fraud.
Members of the GOP’s resolution committee took no action nor had discussion on hand-counting ballots during a Tuesday meeting, the last of the year.
“There’s a lot of moving parts associated with it — I don’t know that anybody at this point is convinced that all those pieces are working correctly,” Richard Jimmink, who chaired the resolution committee, said after the meeting.
“Hopefully, in the future, we’ll get there,” Jimmink added.
A push toward hand-counting ballots was “one of the last moves” of former county GOP Chair Bo French, according to the local party’s newsletter sent Nov. 15.
The change would have meant turning away from the voting machines Tarrant County has used since 2019. It also would have required voters to cast ballots in their own precinct rather than at any polling location of choice across the county.
The local Republican Party could make the change without approval from the Tarrant County Elections Office or Commissioners Court as partisan primary elections are controlled by the political parties.
However, the Democratic Party would have been forced to make the switch to precinct-level voting, according to a state law aimed at preventing voter disenfranchisement within the system. The Democratic Party would not be required to hand-count ballots.
The proposal drew criticism from some Republican election judges, nonpartisan voting advocates and leaders of the Democratic Party. They argued that the changes would vastly increase the cost of running both parties’ primaries as well as compound the complexity of voting and counting ballots.
Tarrant County Democratic Chair Allison Campolo was relieved Wednesday when told that hand-counting ballots — and the precinct-level voting it would have entailed — was off the table for the March primary.
“If the (GOP) ultimately chooses to not pursue precinct-level voting, then that is excellent news for all voters in Tarrant County, regardless of party affiliation,” Campolo said. “Our countywide vote centers have been and continue to be excellent voter resources, which expand ballot access for all Tarrant registered voters.”
The Tarrant County GOP’s new chair, Tim Davis, did not respond to the Report’s requests for comment.
When Davis was elected last month, he told the Report he didn’t know yet if he’d continue French’s push for hand-counted ballots but said he’s in favor of “any system that is secure, that is accurate.”
Across the state, a growing number of local Republican parties are switching to hand-counting, including in Denton and Dallas.
Those who support that method say such measures are more secure and transparent. To Jimmink, hand-counting is more reliable than voting machines, which he said can lose data, be interfered with or have hidden information.
“I’ve seen equipment failures. I’ve seen processes that are inadequate,” he said, listing incidents where he’s seen voting machines glitch.
Richard Jimmink chairs a meeting of the Tarrant County Republican Party’s resolutions committee on Dec. 9, 2025. (Drew Shaw | Fort Worth Report)
Tarrant County’s voting machines hold up to past scrutiny
The voting machines in Tarrant County received heavy scrutiny after the 2020 presidential election amid unsubstantiated claims from Republicans of widespread election fraud. President Donald Trump lost Tarrant County by less than 2,000 votes during his reelection bid that year.
Tarrant County’s then-election administrator Heider Garcia repeatedly defended the machines over his tenure as being secure and reliable. There has been no evidence of widespread or coordinated election fraud under Tarrant County’s current system.
In 2022, following Trump’s persistent denial of his loss in the 2020 election, Republican Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare ran on the promise to increase the county’s election security. He repeated throughout his campaign unsubstantiated allegations that Tarrant County saw significant “mail ballot harvesting” and “Democrats cheating.”
In the year after O’Hare’s election, Garcia resigned after months of facing death threats.
Tarrant County Republican commissioners have historically been talked out of hand-counting and precinct-level voting because of the cost, Kat Cano, lead ballot board judge for the Tarrant County Democratic Party, told the Report in November.
While O’Hare launched multiple initiatives to tighten election security, he has stopped short of suggesting hand-counting ballots.
Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare endorses a candidate during a True Texas Project meeting Aug. 11, 2025, at the Texas Star Golf Course in Euless. (Mary Abby Goss | Fort Worth Report)
O’Hare did not respond to the Report’s request to comment. Nor did French, who resigned in November to run for Texas railroad commissioner.
In recent interviews, Trump has hinted that an executive order regarding election security and interference is on the horizon before the 2026 midterms.
Jimmink said he recommended to Davis that the GOP start the process of switching to hand-counting ballots sooner rather than later.
“This is what I would do: I would lay out a plan of all the pieces that need to be in place, when they need to be in place by, and people need to own specific pieces of it,” he said. “Then we can get it done, and we’ll be doing tests all along.”
Over November, the county’s GOP hosted “speed tests” to assess how fast volunteers can accurately tally ballots.
Clint Ludwig, Tarrant County Elections administrator, did not respond to requests for comment on what would need to be done to make the switch.
A voting machine sits inside the W. P. McLean 6th Grade Center at 3201 S. Hills Ave. for the March 2022 primary election. (File photo | Fort Worth Report) | Fort Worth Report)
One hurdle Republicans face is staffing, as hand-counting would require about twice as many staff in each polling location than usual, election officials previously told the Report. Normally, the goal is to have five poll workers per location, depending upon size.
Most historically used locations would be ineligible for hand-counting, since state law mandates that hand-counted ballots be tallied in a room separate from where people are voting.
The political parties would also likely have to foot the bill for any cost increases to run primaries. Typically, Texas partially reimburses them for election-related costs. In 2023, the state warned county party chairs that it wouldn’t absorb higher-than-normal costs for the primary compared with previous years.
Advocates for hand-counting have suggested this additional cost could be offset by using unpaid volunteers as well as by not paying for the county’s voting machines. The county’s voting machines cost about $1,000 per polling location, according to election invoices sent to the city of Fort Worth and reviewed by the Report.
Jimmink conceded that it’ll be a long process to implement hand-counting as logistics are addressed to figure out where to vote, how to count votes, how to verify that all votes are counted, and how to prove everyone’s work.
“Mechanic stuff should be fairly straightforward,” he said. “It’s just making sure we can actually do it.”
Drew Shaw is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at drew.shaw@fortworthreport.org or @shawlings601.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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