COLLEGE STATION, Texas — From the time early voting started to the time polls closed, Brazos County saw over 59,000 people vote in the 2022 midterm elections. Trudy Hancock, the Elections Administrator for Brazos County, said that more than 30,000 people cast their ballots during the early voting period.
On Election Day, Hancock admitted that a few locations saw a few "hiccups." Most notably, the Memorial Student Center at Texas A&M experienced jams in a few of their scanners in the first few hours of voting at the polling location.
“When your scanner is jamming, they open a separate door that’s an emergency bin and they put those ballots in an emergency bin," said Hancock.
The few ballots that were affected were later scanned at the Brazos Center before the final results were released to the public.
Many students were seen lined up as they waited to vote at the Memorial Student Center. Some students waited for more than an hour to cast their ballot.
Brooke Ubieta, a freshman at Texas A&M, said this was the first election she voted in, and that she waited for more than an hour to vote. She also noted that her friends waited at least an hour and a half to cast their ballot.
“I just thought it would be really convenient to do it on-campus but when something is convenient it’s going to take longer," said Ubieta.
Hancock said that the Memorial Student Center had over 200 voters still in line waiting to vote after 7 p.m. on election night. Ubieta said she plans to vote off-campus the next time she is given the chance to vote.