Unofficial totals show the county's reconciliation rate—the gap between ballots issued and votes cast—stood at just 33 ballots, or 0.006%. That is dramatically lower than the 0.048% rate in 2024 and 0.031% in 2022, according to county data. The figure includes so-called fleeing voters, people who accept a ballot but leave without casting it.

"Travis County voters just had the most accessible election in our history," Travis County Clerk Dyana Limon-Mercado said. "We did all of that while navigating the state's TEAM 2.0 failures, a voter registration backlog the state still has not explained, and two legal fights with the Trump administration, both of which we won."

The smooth operation came against a backdrop of statewide turmoil. The state's voter registration software, known as TEAM 2.0, suffered glitches that contributed to a backlog of more than 500,000 unprocessed registrations across Texas—including roughly 32,000 in Travis County. Voters also dropped off electronic pollbooks, adding to the strain. In the weeks before Election Day, county officials filed suit twice against the Trump administration, seeking to block changes to mail-in ballot procedures and to fend off significant last-minute alterations to election rules.

Claudia Torres-Yañez, vice president of voter service for the Austin-area League of Women Voters, was on call to escalate any problems to state or national chapters. She said none arose.

"I'm very happy to say that it was very uneventful for me," Torres-Yañez said. "Nothing came my way, nothing was sent down my way. It was quiet, which was nice."

Turnout was strong for a midterm election, and the county opened a record 201 polling places staffed by more than 1,200 seasonal election workers. Limon-Mercado credited those workers, calling them "our neighbors" and saying, "I am proud of what this team delivered for Travis County."

Still, the day was not entirely without incident. University of Texas police are searching for a person who pulled fire alarms twice at the Student Union building, one of two campus polling sites. Austin police also responded to a report of an assault by threat at City Hall at 10:58 a.m., though the department said it does not believe the incident was connected to the polling location there.

Early voting saw its own hiccups. Paper jams disrupted voting at three locations, and some voters reported that their selections changed on the screen. Nancy LeBoeuf, who voted early at the Austin Recreation Center, said she noticed her choices had shifted on several pages and went back to correct them before printing her ballot.

"It was just so bizarre, I'd never seen this happen," LeBoeuf said. "When it was all said and done, I printed it out and checked everything, and handed it to the lady checking ballots and told her that my vote changed several times. And she said, 'You're not the first one who has said that.'"

Such reports are common each election cycle and are typically traced to screen calibration problems, voters tapping too hard, or tapping from an awkward angle, according to election experts.

One lingering concern: the number of mail ballots rejected or still pending stood at 662, roughly double the 2024 figure. Provisional ballots rejected or pending were comparable to 2024. Those numbers could shrink as counting continues, which would further bolster the county's case that 2026 was a banner year for clean elections.

The Texas Secretary of State's Office declined multiple requests for comment on statewide voter registration procedures, oversight and transparency, the Department of Public Safety registration backlog, the TEAM 2.0 system, and the federal SAVE database.

The preliminary reconciliation results are set to be ratified at a Travis County Commissioners Court session.