Bexar County emergency ballot procedures raise questions as early voting ends Friday

As early voting enters its final day, some Bexar County voters may be asked to place their completed paper ballots into an emergency compartment instead of feeding them directly into a ballot scanner.

That can happen when a scanner jams or cannot accept ballots. Two election judges who spoke with KSAT on the condition that they not be identified said they have encountered emergency-bin use during this early voting period.

The judges said ballots placed in the emergency compartment are secured, but they are not immediately tabulated at the polling location.

One judge told KSAT ballots can get stuck after being scanned but before falling fully into the scanner’s collection bin. The judge said election workers may open the emergency compartment if they cannot quickly resolve the problem or if technical support has not yet arrived.

The judge said the issue can leave voters concerned because the ballot is no longer scanned in front of them.

KSAT is not reporting that emergency ballots are inherently unsecure or uncounted. The central question is how voters and the public can verify that those ballots are properly documented, transferred and ultimately included in the count.

Training slides obtained by KSAT show Bexar County election workers were instructed that, after a scanner issue was resolved, the presiding judge and alternate judge should remove emergency-bin ballots and feed them into a DS200 ballot scanner together.

One slide says, “There should not be ballots left in the emergency bin after closing.”

Another slide instructs workers to “empty the emergency bin” after the scanner issue is resolved and have two election officials insert the collected ballots into the DS200 scanner.

However, research reviewed by KSAT cites the Texas Secretary of State’s Central Counting Station Handbook, revised July 20, 2026. The handbook says ballots placed in a scanner’s emergency compartment must remain separate from ballots already scanned, be delivered to the central counting station and be scanned there — not through the precinct scanner at the polling place.

KSAT has asked the Texas Secretary of State’s office whether that guidance applies to Bexar County’s specific scanner and emergency-bin setup. The office had not responded as of publication.

The two judges who spoke with KSAT said election workers received updated instructions after early voting began. They said they were told not to scan emergency-bin ballots at the polling location and instead leave them secured for central count.

KSAT has not independently confirmed when or why that guidance changed, or whether it was issued countywide.

Texas provides an online tracker for mail ballots. But KSAT found no public tool that allows a voter to look up an individual in-person ballot placed into an emergency bin and confirm it was scanned.

The anonymous judges and a clerk also said they were not aware of a public voter-facing tracking tool for those ballots.

Bexar County has previously said emergency ballots are individually accounted for through site chain-of-custody logs and stored in a locked compartment accessible to bipartisan election officials.

Those logs could potentially document the transfer and processing of a group of emergency ballots. But a voter record showing someone checked in at a polling location would not, by itself, establish that their particular paper ballot was scanned. Reconciliation records would be needed to compare the number of voters who cast valid ballots with the ballots counted by the voting system.

KSAT sent Bexar County Elections detailed questions Wednesday about emergency-bin procedures, chain-of-custody records, central-count processing and reconciliation. The station requested a response by Thursday’s reporting deadline.

The county declined KSAT’s request for an interview.

In a written response, the county said its focus was on finishing early voting “on a strong note” and that press briefings would be scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 3. When KSAT followed up, the county said it could not provide a statement and encouraged voters to ask poll workers for guidance or assistance.

That leaves unanswered questions about how the county documents the handling and counting of emergency-bin ballots — and what assurance it can provide voters that those ballots were processed.

Early voting ends at 7 p.m. Friday.

More Vote 2026 coverage on KSAT:

• Voters report registration issues; KSAT awaits answers from Bexar County Elections Office
• Texas recount rules: What happens if an election race is close?
• KSAT is tracking voting problems in Bexar County. Here’s how to report yours