Bosque County GOP announced support for hand-counting paper ballots

The chairman of the Bosque County Republican Party informed the Bosque County Commissioners Court of the local county party's official position on hand-counting paper ballots during the public comment period of the court's meeting on Monday, February 5.

Chairman Marisusan Kennedy presented a resolution approved by the BCRP's Executive Committee in support of hand-counted paper ballots for implementation in the 2024 general election.

Kennedy read the resolution as follows: “The Bosque County Republican Party and its conservative voters will work with Bosque County officials to actively pursue the use of paper ballots handcounted in accordance with the Republican National Committee and the Texas GOP resolutions and in compliance with the Secretary of State's guidelines for the 2024 general election and at each subsequent county election.

“Furthermore, the BCRP County Executive Committee unanimously voted to approve this resolution to return to the functional and historical balloting and polling experience that Americans understand.

Kennedy further stated, “As the chairman of the Bosque County Republican Party, I and our membership look forward to working with you. We are not working against you. And I want to make it very clear that we are here as the BRCT. We are not represented by any grassroots organization, nor are we associated with them.”

Kennedy said that the change in the county party's position stemmed from doubts of the results of the 2020 national election.

In her remarks, she noted that the local party's executive committee reviewed the RNC's resolution as well as Texas GOP's followup resolution both titled “Urging a ‘Return to Excellence’ in Voting and Elections.”

“It is abundantly clear these resolutions strongly declare and support a 'Return to Excellence' with the use of paper ballots that are hand counted where counties are willing and able to competently implement these procedures,” she said.

The Republican National Committee adopted its original resolution during its summer 2023 meeting.

Drainage issue

During the public comment period from the same meeting, Gayla Bivins spoke about drainage issues that have yet to be fixed.

Bivins thanked Bosque County Commissioner Precinct 3 Billy Hall for performing some digging; however the draining problem was not resolved.

“The drainage consists of moss, feces, water coming from an area, and I just want it resolved,” she said. “If it was your property, if it was your family being affected, your trees, and everything around it, I'm sure it would have been already resolved.”

Bivins said that she and the court have discussed the drainage issue for roughly a year.

About public comment period

During the public comment period, the members of the public are allowed to speak before the Bosque County Commissioners Court for five minutes.

A group speaking on the same topic will have 15 minutes total speaking time.

Prior to the meeting, a speaker must submit a form that states the topic or specific issue they wish to cover whether or not it's on the court's regular meeting agenda.

During the public comment period, no public official is expected to reply to the speaker, and the court cannot take action on the comments in this period.

All comments are the opinion of the speaker. Comments and language must remain civil and respectful, or a speaker will forfeit the remainder of their time.