Commissioner’s race still too close to call

As of Friday night last week, when provisional ballots were accepted or denied, the race for Hays County Commissioner Precinct 3 is too close to call. Republican Lon Shell has 10,095 votes compared to Democrat Jimmy Alan Hall’s 10,052.

The 43-vote difference includes some provisional ballots that have been counted, but there are still some outstanding. Some of the remaining provisional ballots needed the individuals who filed them to bring in photo identification by Tuesday afternoon, which is after the Wimberley View’s time of press.

The deadline for overseas and military ballots was also Tuesday afternoon, which could impact the race.

“We knew this was going to be a bit different just because of national politics,” Shell said. “I don’t think anybody predicted we would have the turn out we did, but we knew the national politics were going to have a say in this mid term election and it would effect everybody on the ballot. That is what I think we saw.

His opponent Hall said that he plans on contesting the election. He did not say if he would request a recount.

“We have found several voting irregularities that have been brought to my attention,” Hall said.

Hall declined to specify what those irregularities were. At least one person reported on Facebook that they were being told on Election Day to visit different voting locations only to change locations and be told to return to the spot they originally tried to vote at. It is not clear if this is an issue that Hall plans to use as part of contesting the election.

According to Hays County Election Administrator Jennifer Anderson, if the election is contested, the winning candidate would be the County Commissioner while the process is heard by the court system.

Overall, there were 1,316 provisional ballots filed in Hays County, and the ballot board accepted 143 of them. Anderson said that the provisionals that were denied were based on registration issues.

“Basically, they weren’t registered anywhere, weren’t registered in the precinct they were at or they may have been registered in another county,” Anderson said. “It was all registration related.”