Updated 3:45 p.m. CST Oct. 23, 2014

Voters who live in the Block House Creek Municipal Utility District in Leander are being encouraged to use emergency paper ballots because of a programming error with the Williamson County Elections Department's touch-screen voting machines.

Williamson County Elections Administrator Jason Barnett said because of the error, the iVotronic electronic voting machines will only allow residents in Block House Creek MUD to choose one instead of up to three candidates for the MUD's board of directors election. Candidates on the ballot include Vanessa Carter, Debbie Junk and Ursula Logan. There is also an option for voters to write-in candidate Stu McMullen.

"With the electronic voting device, the instructions are correct. It says to vote for none, one, two or three," Barnett said. "Unfortunately it defaulted in the program to vote for one. So if you vote on the iVotronic, you are only going to be able to select a single candidate instead of up to three candidates."

The elections office identified the problem at about 2 p.m. Oct. 20, Barnett said. The issue does not affect voters in any other part of Williamson County, he said.

During the first two days of early voting, some Block House Creek residents were asked to complete provisional ballots, which are used to record a vote when the person's voting eligibility is in question. Barnett said provisional ballots cast by registered Block House MUD voters would be processed as paper ballots, not provisionally.

"Those specific Block House [Creek] MUD voters who voted provisionally will be treated alternately from provisional ballots, because at that time it was the only paper ballot that allowed the voter full access to the candidate selections," he said.

Now through Election Day, Nov. 4, affected voters in the Block House Creek MUD are encouraged to use the emergency paper ballots instead of the electronic voting machines so they have access to all candidates, Barnett said. It is impractical to reprogram the machines before Election Day, he said.

"Texas is a voter intent state, so we have a ballot board that is comprised of members of both Democratic and Republican parties in November, and they evaluate each ballot and look for the intent of the voter," Barnett said. "Even if instructions say to fill in the oval and you make an 'X,' the intent is there and clear, and the ballot board will make the necessary corrections to the ballot so it will scan [and be counted] properly."

Editor's note: This story was updated from its original version to include information about the write-in candidate for the Block House Creek MUD board of directors race.