A man in Atascocita is raising concerns after he says he received his early voting ballot in the mail two weeks after the 2025 Election Day in Harris County.
Wayne Leach, 76, lives in Atascocita with his wife, Jan. He said he relies on mail-in ballots to cast his vote during election cycles.
Recommended Videos
During the 2025 early voting period, he said neither he nor Jan received the ballots they had requested. Because of the delays, Jan decided to vote in person on Election Day, and Wayne didn’t vote at all.
To Wayne’s surprise, his ballot arrived in the mail on Nov. 18 — two weeks after the election.
He shared an image of his ballot with KPRC 2, showing an envelope postmarked Oct. 28 — around the time he initially expected it to arrive in his mailbox.
“The time frames seem odd to me,” Wayne wrote to KPRC 2’s Michael Horton in an email.
KPRC 2 reached out to the office of Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth. The clerk’s office referred us to the Harris County Elections Office, which provided additional information.
A representative with the elections office said the office does not control the United States Postal Service, which distributes mail-in ballots. They added that voters are responsible for contacting the office if they do not receive their ballot close to Election Day.
“We use the United States Postal Service, but we are not the United States Postal Service,” the representative told KPRC 2’s Michael Horton.
If a ballot is not received, the representative recommended visiting HarrisVotes.com for more information on alternative voting options. They also suggested considering non-mail-in methods such as drive-up voting or in-person voting — the option Jan chose when her ballot never arrived.
For senior citizens like Wayne, that response doesn’t address what he sees as a real issue for people who may not have easy access to online or in-person voting options.
“I think it’s a cookie-cutter response,” Wayne told Michael in a text. “I don’t have an axe to grind with the [Harris] County Clerk’s Office or the USPS. I just thought it was unusual for the postmark date to be one week from the election date and then not receiving a ballot — and my wife still not receiving her ballot.”
Wayne added that he does not have a political leaning driving his concern and said he would be interested to know how widespread this issue is in Harris County.
KPRC 2 also requested a statement from the clerk’s office regarding the situation. We will update this article when we receive a response.
If you have experienced similar issues with late mail-in ballots during an election in Harris County, please contact Michael at mhorton@kprc.com.