After early voting concluded Tuesday, roughly 15,000 in-person ballots and 8,000 mail-in ballots were counted in the May 4 municipal election.
That’s a turnout rate of about 1.9% of the county’s 1.2 million registered voters —something Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen said actually puts the county on track for impressive turnout for Saturday, considering how little is on the ballot for most voters.
To Callanen, who has overseen Bexar County’s elections since 2005, the numbers justify her long-held belief in rationing polling-place resources when they’re not needed.
But voting rights advocates, who have already successfully sued twice over violations of Texas law by Bexar County’s elections department, say the elections administrator shares the blame for low turnout — and has once again flouted state law.
Lower-interest elections, like the May 4 ballot, only further complicate the long-simmering debate. Saturday’s election features municipal elections for a dozen small cities within Bexar County, plus a handful of school districts, which all share the cost of administering of the election.
“We ended with 15,000 votes in person, and Shavano Park had about 1,000 of those because they’re having an election,” Callanen said. “So you get these little pockets of the cities that really have a high turnout because they have a lot at stake.”
In addition to electing one of the city’s five at-large aldermen, Shavano Park residents will also decide whether to continue a crime control and prevention district that’s paid for by a quarter-cent sales tax. In Terrell Hills, voters are deciding whether to authorize a property tax freeze for people 65 years of age and older.
But most Bexar County voters are only eligible to vote in this rare, even-numbered year municipal election because of a one-time race for newly created positions on the Bexar Appraisal Board.
While those contests for nebulous, nonpartisan roles have hardly caught the attention of the masses, they’ve still forced a countywide election when there would otherwise only be pockets voting.
All things considered, Callanen said, “It really is exciting that we’ve shown a 1.9% turnout from the county.”
The Bexar Appraisal District chipped in $800,000 for the May 4 election, according to Callanen. Now, if a single candidate doesn’t take 50% of the vote in any of the three at-large appraisal board races, a countywide June 15 runoff will also be needed.
That runoff would cost more than $1 million to administer — paid for by BCAD, Callanen said.
“We’ll do our analysis and then we’ll bring the appraisal district to the office and hopefully find some common sense, strategically placed early voting and election day sites,” she said of the potential June 15 runoff.
“A countywide election, even the barest, quietist one is going to cost $1.2 million,” she added.
Empty polls and Texas laws
Voting rights advocates are keeping close eye on Callanen’s handling of the May elections after she was put on notice by the commission overseeing her position in January.
After the 2020 election, Callanen said that she would retire before the next presidential year, but has since had a change of heart and said she wants to keep working. But she’s not changing her approach.
During a countywide election, Texas state law requires that Bexar County operate 388 polling locations, or half the number of voting precincts, according to the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP), which led the past lawsuits against the county.
A judge sided with the group twice — ahead of the 2020 and 2022 November elections, forcing Bexar County to add additional polling locations at the last minute.
After eight days of operating mostly empty early voting locations, Callanen on Wednesday released a list of the 244 election day locations her department will operate on Saturday, May 4.
Since most early sites saw just a trickle of voters passing through, she also sent a note to elections workers advising that they should “maybe think about taking some reading materials” or cards to entertain themselves.
Elmendorf, for example, had only 39 in-person early votes cast at its polling location, Callanen told the San Antonio Report.
So far, the county hasn’t been sued over its handling of the May 4 election. But TCRP’s voting rights outreach coordinator Taylor Treviño said the group’s lawyers believe the elections administration has broken the law twice already this cycle — over the number of voting locations and the delay in announcing them, since state law also requires the county to post the locations at least 21 days in advance of the election.
“Since this election includes a general election for Bexar County, and Bexar uses countywide polling, it’s subject to a new law preventing the consolidation of election precincts,” she said.
“We have seen issues like this in election after election under Jacque Callanen’s leadership,” Treviño said. “Instead of being transparent in this process, voters are left with little information and guidance.
” … We hope that these issues are fixed immediately and not repeated in the upcoming runoff and [November] general elections,” Treviño added.
In an interview, Callanen stuck to her guns, contending that publishing the election day locations that far in advance — while the early voting locations are also posted — would just confuse voters.
So she waited, as she always does, until early voting had concluded to post the election day sites.
Pointing to the rapid-fire stretch of elections coming down the pipeline, Callanen said she was doing her best to avoid confusion and ration her supply of election workers for the races with the highest interest.
After Saturday, she’ll need their help again starting May 20, when early voting opens for the May 28 primary runoff election. If there’s a June 15 runoff for the BCAD races, early voting would start again on June 3, she said.
“[Critics say] I’m trying to do voter suppression. I’m telling you I’m not,” she said. “Practicality comes into it, you know?”
