Erath County has officially formed its own Elections Office to aid citizens and the county as it continues to grow.
The office, located at the new County Annex at 222 E College in Stephenville, is headed by Elections Administrator Lana Stevens, Chief Deputy Tara Arredondo and Election/ Voter Registration Clerk Katelyn Brooks.
Citizens may be asking why the need to form an elections office occurred at this point and who completed the duties previously.
Previously, election duties were split between several county offices including the tax assessor-collector and the county clerk’s office.
“The workload of handling elections and voter registration was becoming too much for the offices that also handled their other statutory jobs. We did not have enough employees to be able to dedicate them to only the election and voter registration functions,” Stevens said.
The county knew the Secretary of State’s office during the 2021 session wanted counties to start moving towards having elections offices and in 2023 the county began looking at the separation of duties.
“This growing county requires staff to be handling more vehicle registrations and titles every day. As more subdivisions and homes are built, we are having more and more tax accounts added to the tax rolls. This requires the tax office staff to work on more property tax accounts and vehicle records,” she said. “We needed to do more to make the election and voter registration processes a priority, not just another function performed in two already busy offices. Right before a big election is not ideal, but the staff worked through the November 2023 Constitutional Amendment, March 2024 Primary, May 2024 City/School Bond/ Trustee, May 2024 Republican Primary Runoff Election. This staff is experienced and ready for this change.”
For those who may not recognize Lana’s name, she has been a longtime employee in the tax assessor-collector’s office for the past 33 years.
“With [Tax Assessor Collector Jennifer Carey’s] upcoming retirement I wanted to pursue another avenue. She entrusted me with the voter registration duties of her office and I have worked closely with the County Clerk’s office on the Election side as the two are intertwined. I believe my solid foundation of skills coupled with my passion for learning and innovating will help me thrive in this role and benefit Erath County at the same time,” Stevens said. “I just want to reiterate [Carey] and Gwinda Jones, County Clerk have both done a great job with these roles within their offices and I intend to continue to build off the foundations they have formed.”
Withintheoffice,Arredondo is Stevens’ right hand person that assists her in all functions of her office and handles duties in Stevens’ absence. Brooks assists Stevens and Arredondo in all the functions of the office and is the first smiling face the voter sees when they enter.
“I am truly blessed to have both of them,” Stevens said.
For those curious what an elections office does, they are responsible for maintaining 26,000 plus registered voters (entry of new voters, changes, cancellations, jury exemptions, felony convictions, redistricting/ mapping); prepare precinct lists for all elections held in Erath County; data entry of voted history; verify provisional ballots; public information requests; verify candidate and local option petitions; conduct voteroutreach;trainVolunteer Deputy Registrars; manage the Chapter 19 voter registration budget with the State of Texas; work with politicalpartiesandcandidates running for public office; contracting with city/school/ water districts to conduct joint elections; prepare ballots; program and test voting machines; absentee/mail-in ballots; obtaining poll workers/precinct judges/ student workers/ballot board members; conduct training classes for all poll workers; hold early voting (two locations) for two weeks and Election Day voting (11 locations) and complete post election auditing.
As the country heads into national, state, county and local elections, the elections office will complete the following four kinds of voting system testing: Hardware/ Diagnostic Test, Hash Validation/Logic and Accuracy Test, Testing of Tabulation Equipment and Post Election Audit.
“As our population continues to grow, this move will ensure that we conduct elections in Erath County with the highest standards that citizens have always known. We have a great team in place that are already hard at work,” County Judge Brandon Huckabee said.