All early-voting locations reopened with working equipment after officials identified why some ballot-marking devices stopped accepting paper. Voting hours were extended on four days to offset the disruption.

LUBBOCK, Texas — Lubbock County restored its voting machines after discovering that a routine cleaning procedure had activated a security setting that prevented some ballot-marking devices from accepting paper.

County officials said all early-voting sites were fully operational when voting resumed Wednesday, April 22, following the scheduled San Jacinto Day closure.

The malfunction disrupted the first day of early voting for the May 2, 2026, city and school elections. Thirteen polling sites switched to emergency paper-ballot procedures April 20, while six other locations remained open with working equipment but experienced longer waits.

“All voting locations are fully operational following a brief issue with the ballot-marking devices at some locations on Monday,” the county said in an updated announcement reported by Lubbock Lights.

Security toggle stopped machines from taking paper

Lubbock County Elections Administrator Roxzine Stinson said the problem was traced to cleaning sheets used on the machines’ print rollers.

Election workers had run the sheets through the devices as part of routine maintenance before voting. That process apparently activated an internal security toggle on some machines. The devices then refused to accept ballot paper but did not display an error message explaining why.

“It didn’t give us an error message or anything. It just wouldn’t take our paper,” Stinson said.

Once election employees and technicians from Hart InterCivic identified the setting, they were able to correct the affected devices.

Stinson said the county had cleaned the equipment previously without experiencing the same problem. The incident was documented by both the elections office and Hart InterCivic so the vendor could investigate why the security feature was activated and prevent a recurrence.

Paper was initially suspected

Officials initially believed the failure might involve a new supply of ballot paper.

Some voters and poll workers noticed that the paper appeared thicker and had a different surface than sheets used in earlier elections. Employees replaced it with older paper, but the machines continued rejecting the ballots.

Workers also restarted machines, replaced cables and tested older equipment kept in storage. The county confirmed that the election software was correct, but the paper-intake problem persisted until the security setting was discovered.

The county’s machines were purchased in 2017 and were expected to remain serviceable for 10 to 12 years. Officials said the same equipment had worked during recent elections and had also passed testing before the May 2 election.

The failure affected the physical process of accepting ballot paper. Officials did not report a problem with recorded choices, vote tabulation or election software.

Texas uses several types of election equipment. As the Texas Secretary of State explains, a ballot-marking device allows a voter to make selections electronically and then produces a paper ballot that can be reviewed before it is deposited for counting. Hart InterCivic is one of two voting-system vendors certified by the state.

Emergency ballots kept voting available

When the malfunction became widespread, the county placed 13 locations under emergency ballot procedures.

Voters at those sites were allowed to mark yellow emergency ballots by hand. The ballots were then returned to the Lubbock County Elections Office under sheriff’s-department security and stored for processing by the early-voting ballot board.

Those ballots were not provisional ballots. Provisional voting is generally used when election workers cannot immediately confirm a person’s eligibility. The emergency ballots were issued because normal equipment was temporarily unavailable.

Six other polling sites continued operating with functional devices, although the county warned that voting could take longer than usual. The affected and operating locations were listed in the initial county announcement republished by KCBD.

Texas law requires a polling-place judge to stop using equipment that is not functioning properly and arrange for it to be repaired or replaced when practical. Emergency paper procedures provide a backup so equipment trouble does not require voting to stop entirely.

Tuesday closure was already scheduled

Polling locations were closed Tuesday, April 21, for San Jacinto Day, a state holiday. The closure was part of the original early-voting schedule and was not caused by the machine malfunction.

The scheduled pause nevertheless gave county employees, Hart InterCivic technicians and state election officials additional time to diagnose the equipment without further affecting voters.

Before the security toggle was identified, Stinson described her staff as “bumfuzzled” by the inconsistent failures. Some machines worked while apparently identical devices rejected paper. Even older machines showed the same behavior after being cleaned.

Once the problem was isolated, officials reset the affected equipment and announced that every location could return to normal operations Wednesday.

Extended hours added on four days

To make up for delays experienced on the first day, Lubbock County extended early-voting hours until 9 p.m. on:

• Wednesday, April 22
• Thursday, April 23
• Monday, April 27
• Tuesday, April 28

The additional hours were approved for all early-voting locations, giving voters more opportunities to cast ballots before the May 2 election.

Official results from the completed city and school elections were subsequently published through the Lubbock County Elections Office. County officials did not announce another widespread equipment failure during the remaining voting period.

The incident demonstrated the purpose of maintaining both technical support and paper-ballot backups: officials removed malfunctioning devices from use, preserved access through emergency ballots and restored normal voting after identifying the equipment setting responsible.