We smelled trouble when it became apparent that the Dallas County GOP was going to push forward with its knuckleheaded plan to have a separate primary election this year. But even our well-exercised imagination failed to envision just how bad election day would turn out in Dallas County. Our newsroom colleagues captured the chaos: Hundreds of voters who had to be rerouted because they had gone ...

A line forms as a poll worker makes sure voters are at their assigned voting location at the Oak Lawn Branch Library on Tuesday in Dallas, Texas.

Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News/TNS

We smelled trouble when it became apparent that the Dallas County GOP was going to push forward with its knuckleheaded plan to have a separate primary election this year. But even our well-exercised imagination failed to envision just how bad election day would turn out in Dallas County.

Our newsroom colleagues captured the chaos: Hundreds of voters who had to be rerouted because they had gone to their usual voting place and not their assigned precinct. Citizens who ping-ponged from one to a second to even a third location. A Secretary of State website that sent voters to the wrong place because it was using outdated precinct maps.

For voters who stuck it out and rushed to the polls after work, long lines awaited them at many voting sites. The Dallas County Democratic Party asked for an extension, a local judge granted it, and then the Texas Supreme Court put a kibosh on that. The provisional ballots cast by voters after 7 p.m. would not be counted.

We expected election day to be a nail-biter, and it was, but for all the wrong reasons.

The public explanation offered by Allen West, chair of the Dallas County Republican Party, was that having its primary separate from the Democratic one would reduce “fraudulent activity.” He didn’t cite any evidence, but why would he? We’re not a country that hungers for facts anymore. We prefer vibes and impressions that align with whatever we were already thinking.

It wasn’t just election day that West and Republican precinct chairs twisted to make it more uncomfortable to vote. Early voting in Dallas County changed, too. While countywide polling locations were still an option for voters during early voting, the separate primaries meant that voters had to physically sort themselves into Republican or Democrat in plain view of everyone else at the polling location.

Before, you could select your party privately during check-in, get your ballot and use any polling machine available. This time, some voters complained that they had to wait in line to use a machine on the Democratic side of the room while machines sat idle on the Republican side.

We expect that Dallas County will conduct a post-mortem of this primary from start to finish. No doubt that Republican leaders threw a wrench in the county’s processes, but county officials also have to give an accounting of how they performed their duties and what could have gone more smoothly that was within their control.

Just because citizens missed early voting doesn’t mean they should resign themselves to pandemonium on election day.

And make no mistake. The ploy of the local GOP to mess with the primary disenfranchised Republican voters, too. People of both parties dealt with confusion and frustration in what is the most sacred of civic duties.

This is the United States of America. It should be easy to vote.

You know who had an effortless Tuesday? Allen West. The engineer of this mess sailed to reelection as local party chair, unchallenged.

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