HOUSTON, Texas — Election Day is less than a week away and Harris County Election officials are optimistic things will run smoothly -- despite past issues.
“I feel really confident and good about election day,” said Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth during a media open house at NRG, which is being called the election command center.
A firestorm following last year’s election returned election management duties to her office.
“We have put many measures in place in a small amount of time," said Hudspeth. "As you all know, I inherited operations on September 1st and we have been moving very fast.”
Cameras monitor the command center 24/7 and are available for public view on the Harris Votes website. And for the first time in several years, materials from the 701 Election Day polling places will first stop at one of six rallying sites to help consolidate trips to the command center.
Officials are also preparing for potential sickness or other election worker absences.
"And so what we do is go through our emergency management system of individuals who are ready to go to the polls,” said Hudspeth.
Those are places where many workers have used early voting to work out any kinks.
"It seems like it’s a lot more streamlined process now," said voter Vanessa Phung. "So, hopefully, things have changed. They’ve learned their lesson, and we can go from there.”
There’s already a lot of work going on at the command center, including the processing of mail-in ballots. About 10,000 have been received as of Wednesday morning.
More than 120,000 people have already participated in early voting which ends Friday, Nov. 3.