Kerr County elections were smooth, despite changes

Leave it to Kerr County Precinct 2 Commissioner Rich Paces to make the routine seem difficult in his effort to re-work the county’s election practices. Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly focused on pushing back against it on Monday.

During the canvas of the Nov. 7 election results, Paces questioned Kerr County Tax Assessor/Collector Bob Reeves about any problems with the election counting. Paces, a champion of election-based conspiracy theories and hand counting, wanted to know how the hand count sample worked.

“No problems out of the ordinary,” Reeves told Paces. “You couldn’t elect a dog catcher without having a few problems. There was nothing out of the ordinary.”

Paces wanted to know if discrepancies existed between the machine-counted ballots and those counted by hand. Reeves and his deputy, Nadene Alford, said there were none.

That allowed Kelly to counter some of Paces’ concerns, which led to a shift in the county’s election management from Reeves to County Clerk Ian Collum. The Nov. 7 election marked the first time the County Clerk’s office ran an election in years. The transition between the two offices, which resulted from Paces’ unending assault on the process, led the Texas Secretary of State’s Office to monitor the election.

The clerk’s office reported that the Secretary of State officials commended it for a smooth election process, where more than 8,000 voters cast in a race solely focused on constitutional amendments. The report came at the urging of Kelly, who wanted to emphasize that the county’s election services are operationally sound.