Austin Democrat files legislation to change how primary elections are run

Voter confusion during Texas primaries in WilCo

An Austin Democrat said he is filing legislation to change how primary elections are run. This is in response to the confusion that happened during the March primaries.

AUSTIN, Texas - An Austin Democrat said he is filing legislation to change how primary elections are run. 

State Representative John Bucy said his plan is in response to the confusion that happened during the March primaries.

The backstory:

"In Texas, voters should be able to clearly understand where and how to cast their ballot, but in the March primary, that's not what happened," State Representative John Bucy said.

State Rep. Bucy said he wants to introduce legislation next session requiring each political party to hold its own primary election independently of other political parties.

"This is about fixing a system that puts voters in the middle of decisions they don't control," State Rep. Bucy said.

Dig deeper:

The Bucy plan is in response to primary election day chaos in Williamson and Dallas counties.

The voting was switched from county-wide to precinct-based polling for Republicans and Democrats. The change in voting locations had not been done in recent election cycles and that had some voters showing up to the wrong location.

"You'll ask yourself why? Because the Williamson County Republican Party decided for the first time in 10 years to use precinct level voting and because of bad law, Democrats were then forced to do the same," State Rep. Bucy said.

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Williamson County was at the focus of primary election night controversy after a judge ordered certain polling locations to extend voting hours.

The confusion led to a request to extend voting hours, which added more confusion and chaos to the night. Representative Bucy claimed his bill would provide flexibility, allowing each party to run its own election, meaning a one-stop voting location for everyone may not be the case with Republicans voting at a Republican polling place and Democrats voting at their own.

"I think this is a commonsense measure that philosophically we're going to see a lot of bipartisan support," State Rep. Bucy said.

What they're saying:

This change may not completely prevent crossover voting, but civil rights groups said it could protect party independence.

"This change in the law would allow for party integrity and would not allow the other party to unreasonably or improperly invade into the affairs of the other parties," NAACP Texas President Gary Bledsoe said.

Blame for the primary chaos remains unresolved. Williamson County GOP Chairwoman Michelle Evans noted Democrat party leaders failed to effectively get the word out to their base.

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Williamson County was at the focus of primary election night controversy after a judge ordered certain polling locations to extend voting hours.

"The Democrats in Williamson County are a huge reason why March 3 went as terribly as it did. And in fact, they are fully to blame for the three-to-four-hour-long lines that they had because we didn't have that issue. We had far more polling places, attempted to share the maximum number of polling places possible, they blocked every attempt to do that except for a few locations, so I'm not sure that that voter confusion is really a priority for them," Evans said.

A better solution. According to Evans, it would be the use of public buildings as polling locations.

"They are a taxpayer-funded building after all, so I think that that would potentially be far more helpful than anything that John Bucy is proposing," Evans said.

What's next:

Both the Dallas and Williamson County GOPs are working to return to countywide voting for the May primary runoff.