The Hays County Commissioners Court approved an order to canvass results for countywide and precinct 2020 election races during its regular Nov. 10 meeting.
Jennifer Anderson, Hays County election administrator, reported historical election turnout numbers for the county, with 71.03% of registered voters casting ballots. Anderson says ballots by mail totaled 12,548—nearly twice the number of mail-in ballots normally collected by Hays County officials. The Elections Office also received 2,113 provisional ballots, and of those ballots, 434 were accepted.
Anderson says the total number of voters was 109,107, with the vast majority of these ballots being cast during early voting.
“Almost 100,000 [people] voted in early voting, so that three weeks of early voting period was very productive,” Anderson said.
Pursuant to the Texas Election Code, official election results are determined from the canvass of the precinct returns. Canvassing returns means confirming all valid ballots cast in an election. Election officials canvass results to resolve any errors in the process before results are made official.
Results canvassed by the court Nov. 10 can be viewed on the Hays County website. The Commissioners Court must canvass the results of the following countywide and precinct races:
- County Court at Law #3
- County Sheriff
- County Tax Assessor-Collector
- Commissioner, Precinct 1
- Commissioner, Precinct 3
- Justice of Peace, Precinct 1, Place 1
- Constable, Precinct 1
- Constable, Precinct 2
- Constable, Precinct 3
- Constable, Precinct 4
- Constable, Precinct 5
The Commissioners Court also received a COVID-19 update from Tammy Crumley, director of county-wide operations. Crumley reported in the past seven days, Texas State’s Student Health Center and campus Curative testing kiosk tested 1,527 people, with 55 testing positive.
“That’s a 3.6% positivity rate, up from 0.4% from last week. [Texas State] is monitoring cases closely to determine if they had a post-Halloween spike or the beginning of a sustained surge,” Crumley said.
Crumley also said as of Nov. 10, Texas State has 25 students in isolation and 15 in quarantine. Those who test positive are isolated, while those who are identified by Bobcat Trace as a close contact to a positive case are quarantined. Crumley says there is currently no evidence of a campus spread.
“Through contact tracing, the cases seem to be linked to either friends, coworkers or the bars beginning to open up,” Crumley said.
