As far as Dallas County Elections Administrator Toni Pippins-Poole is concerned, two Dallas City Council races will be “in limbo” well after polls close Saturday night. At this very moment, 671 ballots cast in the race for the Dallas City Council sit under lock and key at the Dallas County Elections Department — 426 of which were cast in the race for District 6 and 245 cast in the District 2 campaign. Those are mail-in ballots, and their legitimacy is very much in dispute. In recent weeks, elderly voters in West Dallas, where sitting council member Monica Alonzo faces a handful of challengers, alleged that someone forged their signatures on mail-in ballot applications. As a result, those ballots will not be tallied in early voting. Instead, “affected voters” — in the words of Dallas’ city secretary, Rosa Rios — were allowed to cast their vote using a provisional ballot.
County elections officials will then take the next step to compare mail-in ballots and provisional ballots. If a voter cast a provisional ballot, their mail-in ballot won’t be counted. And if there isn’t a provisional ballot, the mail-in ballots will be handed over to the county’s Signature Board to determine whether or not it’s the real thing.
The process will likely extend into early next week.
