Dallas County Court presses ES&S over decertified poll book, asks for expedited third‑party testing and contingency plans

Dallas County Commissioners Court members pressed representatives of Election Systems & Software (ES&S) on Jan. 7 over a poll‑book software version the Texas Secretary of State has decertified and demanded rapid testing and contingency planning ahead of May municipal elections.

The issue matters because county elections rely on electronic poll books for early voting and Election Day check‑in. Commissioners said they could not risk running uncertified software in a large county and ordered ES&S and county elections staff to accelerate regression and third‑party usability testing and to develop fallback options if the product is not certified by March.

At the hearing, ES&S described the technical cause of the November check‑in problem as a timing/latency issue in the acceptance/print workflow. ES&S said it implemented a temporary workaround during the November election and has built a permanent fix that will disable repeated presses of the “accept” button and add a processing indicator. ES&S said the fix is included in a new build (7,280) and needs regression testing and Secretary of State review before re‑certification.

Judge Clay Jenkins and several commissioners pressed ES&S on risk if the Secretary of State did not re‑certify the product in time. “You killed this thing,” Jenkins said, summarizing the court’s concern that the vendor’s certified product is effectively “dead” until the state re‑licenses it. Commissioners asked ES&S to provide a short, concrete plan and timeline by the end of the week and to turn the software over to an independent voting‑system test laboratory (Pro V&V) for aggressive “break it” usability testing in parallel with state review.

ES&S offered to pay for third‑party usability testing and to place additional company staff in Dallas during installation, logic‑and‑accuracy testing and early voting at no extra cost. ES&S also proposed running parallel tests with the Secretary of State and acknowledged the county’s point that, as a large county with many early‑voting sites, Dallas could not easily fall back to precinct‑based procedures without significant disruption.

County elections officials highlighted two constraints: (1) the Secretary of State’s certification rules, which counsel said prevent the county from using an uncertified version, and (2) time: the county must be decided and operational well before early voting begins April 21. Elections Administrator Hyder (listed in the meeting as the county’s elections administrator) told the court that options include seeking a previously certified version (which, per the state, may not be available), certifying the new build before March 3 submission deadlines, or contracting with an alternate certified vendor — an option that would need to be decided quickly to secure inventory and training.

The court did not take a final vote to change vendors. Instead commissioners asked ES&S and county staff to report back with an updated testing schedule and a contingency plan for the next two court meetings. Judge Jenkins and others also recommended convening the Continuous Improvement Committee or a special session to evaluate alternate vendors and the procurement path if a change is needed.

ES&S officials told the court they would “throw everything we have” at ensuring a successful Dallas election and said they wanted the chance to fix the product and support the county. Commissioners said they would pursue rapid parallel testing and evaluate vendor alternatives as a prudent backup.

Provenance: The court’s questioning of ES&S, the vendor explanation of the software timing/print issue, ES&S’s testing plan and the court’s direction to pursue third‑party testing appear in the meeting transcript between the vendor presentation and the commissioners’ March/ certification discussion.