With early voting already underway for the 2026 midterm elections, Bexar County Election officials said some voters experienced ballot discrepancies, but they won’t know how many until after election night. 

On the first day of early voting, voters in East Central Independent School District reported not seeing the district’s Proposition A on the ballot, an issue the county said was fixed by the end of the day. Similar reports were made in Edgewood ISD, which has school board races on the ballot. 

It wasn’t just school districts that were affected, said Elections Administrator Michele Carew. 

“What happened was the data we received from the state — there were splits in districts,” Carew told reporters on Tuesday. “So if you’re looking at a street, and this side might be one school district, and this side might be another, the data we received from the state transposed the ballot… Once that was brought to our attention, we were able to correct it.” 

Carew says that voters who believe there is an error on their ballot should notify an election worker before submitting their ballot, but voters who already submitted their ballots and suspect there was an error cannot receive replacement ballots.

The discrepancy shouldn’t stop school districts or other agencies with items on the ballot from certifying their results, officials said. 

Addressing long wait times

After recording higher than usual turnout on the first day of early voting, Carew said her department is beefing up equipment and staffing.

On Monday, more than 42,000 Bexar County residents showed up to vote, nearly a third more than the turnout for the first day of the 2022 midterm elections. 

Several voters reported long wait times, and Carew said one polling location didn’t close until 9 p.m. even though early voting polls are supposed to close at 6 p.m. 

Packed with attention-grabbing Senate and gubernatorial races, statewide elections, county races and more, 27 different agencies contracted with the Bexar County Elections Department this election season to get an item on ballots. 

“We prepared for this election as if it were a presidential election. So we looked at 2024 numbers,” Carew said, but Monday’s swell of voter turnout proved their “theory wrong.” 

To meet demand, Carew said her team added 40 new pieces of voting equipment and check-in stations. There’s also 50 people working the phones to answer voters’ questions about voting registrations and general election information. 

She advises using the county’s new election wait times app. Voters type in their address, and the site generates the closest polling locations and their average wait times. 

Election tips

For voters who require disability accommodations, each polling site has a drive thru polling station, but those wait times are similar to the walk-in wait times. 

Voters who need accommodations may also cut the line by going inside a voting center. 

As of Tuesday afternoon, 72,302 votes have been cast in person and 14,754 mail-in ballots were received, according to Carew.

She said the department would start running ballots through election machines on Oct. 31, the day after early voting ends, but tabulation wouldn’t occur until the polls close on election night, so she doesn’t have a timeline for when the public would have access to results. 

If voters show up to the polls and an election worker can’t find them on the county’s voter registration list, they can request provisional ballots. 

Even if lines are long, Carew encourages voters to stay in line as long as they show up to polling locations before polling closes. Voters are not allowed to use cell phones in the voting booth, so Carew recommends printing out a sample ballot to mark. 

To find a copy of your sample ballot, go here. 

Early voting goes through Friday, Oct. 30 and Election Day is on Nov. 3.