Clerk and Recorder: Hill County's general election was a success

Hill County Clerk and Recorder Sue Armstrong said that the 2020 election process was a resounding success, with massive turn-out and an overwhelming majority of mail-in ballots having been returned and tabulated without issue.

“We had an awesome voter turnout,” Armstrong said Thursday afternoon. “Of all the ballots that were issued, 88 percent were returned. The overall percent of all registered voters for Hill County was 79 percent voter turnout.”

Tabulation was wrapped up around 3 a.m. Wednesday morning with 7,287 votes processed.

Armstrong said that, because this year’s election had a two-page ballot, 14,568 total sheets went through the tabulator, which will make tabulation go on longer.

She said a few precincts had to be retabulated due to a few double-picks, but the Election Night Board just started cleaning the tabulator more often and it ran smoothly from then on.

Armstrong said the county received only 815 ballots on election day, 154 of which were same-day registrations.

But, she said, her office was not just busy election day, but since Oct. 2 when it became possible to vote.

“We were very busy the whole voting period,” she said. “In-person and mail-in voter registration cards were being processed daily, which involved issuing ballots in the office and also mailing ballots as requested.”

She said the county did see some undeliverable ballots, but her office did everything they could to rectify the situation.

“We had a few hundred undeliverable ballots. We called every one of the undeliverable ballot voters that had a working phone number and mailed letters to those who we could not contact or if we had to leave a message on their phone,” she said. “Those voters had the choice of having their ballot mailed to their new address or appear in person at the office to receive their ballot.”

Armstrong said some ballots couldn’t be processed due to issues with the signature, but those voters were similarly given the opportunity to rectify those issues.

“We had 18 ballots that could not be accepted due to the fact they were missing a signature, or a signature that could not be verified,” she said. “All these voters were called multiple times, sent emails and/or mailed letters to resolve them. They then had until 5 p.m. on Nov. 4, to come to our office to resolve the issue or email us a form with a photo ID.”

Armstrong said a handful of ballots still exist that her office hasn’t yet processed that will be counted Nov. 9, 16 in total. She said one is provisional, one is a Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act ballot and 14 ballots which signature issues that have since been resolved.

Armstrong said while it’s hard to say what things would have looked like had this been a normal poll election, it likely would have taken longer, especially with how difficult it would have been finding enough election judges amid the pandemic and with so many people in quarantine.

“We had eight absentee board judges and four of those eight had to be replaced before we started the process,” she said.

Armstrong said having a secondary location to return ballots was very helpful with the courthouse closed Election Day.

“We were lucky to be able to utilize the Hill County Treasure’s office as a separate spot for ballots to be returned,” she said. “It left our office able to help all the voters who needed to register and have a ballot issued and any voters whom needed a ballot reissued.”

Armstrong said she was grateful to all the election staff who worked tirelessly to make everything happen under unique circumstances.

“We want to thank our election staff who worked extremely hard weeks on end,” she said. “They were inundated with not only daily work of our office but phone calls, daily processing of voter registration cards, in person voting, with our elevator out of order they were going out to voters cars and down stairs to help voters the entire voting time. They had the added task, due to COVID, of cleaning and following social distance guidelines. They went above and beyond the required duties to make sure every voter was treated fairly. Hill County Election staff rocked this election.”