Texas Democrats Hit Long Lines and Tech Problems in 2022's First Primary

[Deminpenn]

5. Texas has closed a closed primary,

meaning only Dems can vote for Dems and only Rs for Rs. If a poll is using only 1 set of voting machines, the machine has to be set differently depending on the party registration of the voter each time. It can take a bit of time if, for example, the voting machine has to be set/re-set with a cartridge.

In PA, for those precincts/counties not using paper ballots, there's only one set of voting machines and those are set each time for each voter. TX apparently found it easier to have seperate voting machines for each party, but both approaches work.

In a relatively Dem-heavy county like Harris, not surprised that there'd be more Dem voters out than Rs thus the difference in wait times.