Suit filed to protest vote in Pct. 3

Hays County Precinct 3 Commissioner Lon Shell was sworn into office on Tuesday with his family by his side. But his narrow margin of victory is being challenged.

Jimmy Alan Hall, the Democratic candidate for the office, has officially contested the results of the race that Shell won by only 37 votes. Hall filed an Election Contest lawsuit on Dec. 13 that alleged numerous issues with the election.

“I want every vote counted, because every person who cast their ballot, that was entitled to have their vote counted, should have their vote counted,” Hall said. “I don’t think that happened.”

Hall alleged that there were people who live within Precinct 3 that were given a ballot for Precinct 2 races. He also said that there were students on the Texas State University Campus who went to their polling location only to be told to move to another location. Once getting to the new location, he said they were told to go back to the original voting location they came from.

“We aren’t sure they ever made it back to vote,” Hall said. “We think some of them didn’t make it back in time or gave up.”

Shell said that he hasn’t heard of any claims in Hays County that voters were sent back and forth to multiple precincts and unable to vote.

Hall also questioned the provisional ballots, saying that he believes some were incorrectly approved while others were incorrectly dismissed.

“I haven’t been given all of the provisional ballots yet to look at, but I have tried,” Hall said. “I’m working on obtaining all of the information that is available.”

Shell said there is a bipartisan process in place to check provision ballots, and that process has already taken place.

“There is a ballot board that looks at this and makes sure that vote is properly cast and were they registered to vote in Hays County,” Shell said. “That has all been looked at by a bipartisan ballot board on which ballots were validly-cast ballots. All of the votes have been counted.”

No court dates have as yet been set.

--This article contains reporting by Wimberley View Editor Dalton Sweat