Election Judge Resigns After Yelling, Threatening To Call Cops On Confused Black Voter: ‘Get Out! Get Out!’

An election judge in Texas has resigned after she was caught on camera screaming at a black voter and threatening to call the police when the woman expressed confusion about where to vote, reports Austin’s KVUE.

Williamson County election judge and election supervisor Lila Guzman stepped down from her position on Monday following the Nov. 2 confrontation at the Williamson County Annex in Round Rock.

“Get out. Get out. Get out. You are rude. You are not following the law,” Guzman is heard yelling at the voter. “Go. Go.”

Guzman is also heard warning the voter that she is going to call the cops to have her escorted out of the building. The voter reportedly left the polling location before police arrived.

“As soon as she started getting louder, I was like, ‘This is getting out of hand.’ So I began to record,” the voter who recorded the video told KVUE. “She did tell her she couldn’t vote there, but she didn’t say where in Travis. The lady did have an accent. She could’ve been new to the country. I don’t know, but she needed some help.”

“Our supervisor loses her composure in the middle of this, and that’s not something that we ever train our poll workers, supervisors, election judges and clerks to do,” Williamson County Elections Administrator Chris Davis said. “We always train them and advise them to maintain control of the situation politely and answer voters’ questions and give voters options so situations like these don’t escalate.”

A @WilcoElections supervisor and judge has resigned following an incident in which she was caught on camera screaming at a confused voter. A woman who recorded the video was shocked at the judge’s behavior — and so was her boss. https://t.co/fKYKHHkaTC @KVUE pic.twitter.com/j3v25VooFe

— Pattrik Perez (@PattrikPerez) November 6, 2018

KVUE notes:

Davis told KVUE he believes the voter arrived at the polling site after being turned away by Travis County poll workers.

The voter was registered to vote in Williamson County but resided in Travis County, Davis said, and the poll workers in Travis County should’ve sent her to the Travis County Elections Division so she could vote a limited ballot. Instead, the voter tried to vote at the Williamson County Annex.

“I regret that that incident happened with that poll worker because that voter was just trying to get answers that weren’t being provided to her in a way that we train our poll workers to give,” Davis said. “It was the end of the day, and we were seeing steady turnout across all sites, but again, no excuse. It’s our job to get voters answers and help them vote, either at our site or the site where they need to vote.”

Guzman blamed her outburst on a brutal work schedule, reportedly working 12-hour days for nearly two weeks. She also claims she didn’t resign because of the incident, but rather because she felt the Williamson County Board of Elections didn’t give her sufficient backup.