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Officers in a big North Texas county determined this week to chop greater than 100 Election Day polling websites and scale back the variety of early voting areas, amid rising concern about GOP efforts to restrict voting entry forward of subsequent yr’s midterm elections.
The three-2 vote on Tuesday by commissioners in Tarrant County, which incorporates Fort Price, got here sooner or later after President Donald Trump vowed to end the use of mail-in ballots. The president lacks the unilateral energy to resolve how particular person states run elections, however his declaration speaks to long-brewing and unfounded claims by some conservatives that the nation’s electoral system is insecure and weak to widespread fraud. Trump has repeatedly and falsely asserted that he gained the 2020 presidential election as a substitute of Joe Biden.
Tarrant County Decide Tim O’Hare, who heads up the commissioners courtroom, has additionally raised quite a few questions in regards to the safety of native elections, serving to to launch an electoral integrity unit within the county after he grew to become choose in 2022. As of final summer season, nevertheless, the unit had acquired fewer than 100 allegations of voter fraud. He and fellow Republican commissioners additionally lower funding to supply free bus rides to the polls for low-income residents. “I don’t consider it’s the county authorities’s duty to attempt to get extra individuals out to the polls,” O’Hare mentioned on the time. And commissioners prohibited exterior organizations from registering voters inside county buildings after Tarrant County GOP leaders raised issues about what they mentioned had been left-leaning teams holding registration drives. (ProPublica and The Texas Tribune have previously written about O’Hare’s political influence in North Texas.)
On Tuesday, O’Hare voted with the 2 Republican commissioners on the courtroom to cut back the variety of polling websites within the county to 216, down from 331 in 2023. The choice additionally lower down the variety of early voting websites.
County officers mentioned the transfer was to save cash, as they traditionally see low voter turnout in nonpresidential elections.
All through the assembly, O’Hare repeatedly emphasised that the cuts had been supposed to make the election extra environment friendly. He argued that each the change to county-wide voting in 2019, which permits voters to forged a poll at any polling website within the county, and the anticipated low turnout made the cuts acceptable.
“I might enterprise to guess 99% of the general public can not identify a single factor on (the 2025 poll),” he mentioned throughout the assembly.
Fewer voting websites means fewer voters, Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor on the College of Houston, instructed the Report.
“Should you transfer a polling place farther away from somebody’s home, then they’re much less more likely to vote since you’ve elevated the price of voting,” mentioned Rottinghaus, who has studied ballot placement and its influence on turnout. “The fee will be your time. It may be your fuel.”
The county’s transfer falls according to a nationwide development that typically sees Republican-led states and localities “restrain and limit” how voting operates — typically within the identify of discouraging unlawful voting or, in Tarrant County’s current case, chopping prices, Rottinghaus mentioned. This might appear like decreasing voting areas or shortening early voting hours, he mentioned.
Texas has led a number of efforts to make going to the polls harder, he mentioned, similar to making mail-in ballots harder to obtain and requiring photo IDs when casting a poll.
No single regulation dramatically impacts voter turnout, Rottinghaus mentioned, quite, it’s the collective of ever-changing insurance policies that may discourage individuals from voting.
“The extra you progress round how voting happens, just like the hours and the areas, the more durable it’s for voters to grasp precisely what they’re purported to do and when,” he mentioned. “A confused voter is normally a nonvoter.”
This isn’t the primary time Tarrant County has been on the forefront of adjusting political headwinds. Earlier this summer season, the commissioners, led by O’Hare, voted along party lines to redraw the county precincts; such modifications normally occur after the decennial census quite than in the midst of the last decade. O’Hare admitted the purpose of the redrawn maps was to favor Republican candidates.
“That is about Republican versus Democrat, interval,” O’Hare instructed Dallas tv station WFAA forward of the commissioners’ June 3 vote. “If it passes with one of many maps that I might wish to see go, it’s a really sturdy chance that we are going to have three Republicans on the Commissioners Courtroom.”
In July, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott added redistricting to the agenda of a special legislative session — a step he was apparently reluctant to take till he acquired a name from Trump to debate the difficulty, the Tribune reported. The proposal has sparked a nationwide struggle over the redrawing of congressional maps. On Wednesday, the GOP-led Texas Home took an preliminary vote adopting a new map designed to extend the variety of Republican seats within the U.S. Congress.
Abbott has additionally fanned issues about allegations of unlawful voting, final yr asserting the elimination of greater than 1 million ineligible voters from the state’s rolls, together with greater than 6,500 potential noncitizens. An investigation by ProPublica, the Tribune and Votebeat, nevertheless, discovered that the variety of alleged noncitizens the governor cited was doubtless inflated and, in some circumstances, improper.
Considerations In regards to the Cuts
Greater than three dozen audio system at Tuesday’s assembly denounced the transfer to chop polling websites and early voting areas, with some elevating issues that it amounted to the suppression of Black, Hispanic and college-age voters. A number of audio system referred to as the cuts a extra excessive model of O’Hare’s failed effort to remove eight early voting locations at colleges final yr. Just one individual spoke in favor of the reductions.
Sabrina Ball, who opposed decreasing the polling websites, mentioned she has labored as an election choose in Republican Commissioner Manny Ramirez’s district in northwest Tarrant County. She mentioned she’s seen firsthand individuals working onerous to search out the time to get to a polling location and vote.
“You’re not saving cash. You’re sacrificing democracy to avoid wasting a buck,” she mentioned.
The 2 Democratic commissioners, Roderick Miles Jr. and Alisa Simmons, voted towards the modifications after unsuccessfully attempting to delay the choice.
“Everyone deserves the suitable to have a spot that they’re snug with and acquainted with to go and to forged their vote,” mentioned Miles, who represents predominantly Black neighborhoods that noticed a discount in voting areas. He later added, “To dismantle or take these rights away from us that we labored onerous to get is unacceptable at any degree.”
Simmons mentioned it was inappropriate to cut back voting areas as Tarrant County’s inhabitants grows. She identified that the Republican members of the Commissioners Courtroom used that progress as a cause to redistrict the county’s precincts midcycle this year — a change that will considerably improve the probabilities of a GOP candidate defeating her in 2026.
A Texas regulation handed in Might reduces the county’s minimum Election Day voting locations to 212 — rolling again a 2023 requirement of 347.
Credit score:
Drew Shaw/Fort Price Report
Tarrant County Election Administrator Clinton Ludwig mentioned the websites meet the state’s new “naked minimal,” with “a little bit little bit of wiggle room” in case sure deliberate areas fall by way of. He instructed commissioners that the initially proposed cuts aimed to avoid wasting about $1 million.
He mentioned he based mostly the reductions on voter turnout in 2023, which noticed about 12.5% registered voters forged ballots, he mentioned. Areas’ accessibility and talent to securely retailer voting data had been additionally thought of, Ludwig mentioned.
He mentioned that no commissioner had any affect on the record and that no partisan evaluation was taken under consideration.
Ludwig and O’Hare’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to requests to remark following the vote. O’Hare has additionally not responded to ProPublica and the Tribune’s earlier reporting about him, declining a number of interview requests and refusing to reply questions, although a spokesperson despatched the newsrooms a list of eight of his major accomplishments, together with chopping county spending and reducing native property tax charges.
Rottinghaus mentioned some counties “yo-yo” yr to yr within the variety of polling locations they’ve. Elections similar to November’s sometimes have fewer areas than presidential and midterm ones, he mentioned. Nonetheless, Tarrant County’s discount appears “aggressive,” he mentioned.
As soon as the variety of polling locations goes down, it normally stays down, Rottinghaus mentioned.
“You’re going to typically see that very same quantity proceed for not less than the close to time period,” he mentioned.
Although he in the end voted to cut back polling areas, Ramirez pushed again on the preliminary record of cuts to early voting websites, a few of which he mentioned had been established and widespread with voters. Ramirez mentioned the county should stability entry and effectivity. Commissioners then added again 9 early voting areas. O’Hare was the lone vote towards that transfer, saying a few of these websites had traditionally low turnout.
“The system for the place you set these voting websites must be scientific,” Ramirez instructed the Report forward of the vote. “It must be population-based and proximity to further site-based.”
A number of Fort Price Metropolis Council members urged their constituents to talk towards the trouble within the lead-up to the vote.
Council member Carlos Flores, who represents elements of northwest Fort Price, issued a statement towards the vote, saying fewer websites negatively influence various communities. In a press release to the Report, he added that restricted polling areas and inconvenient voting procedures contribute to low turnout.
Mia Corridor, who represents southwest Fort Price, despatched a news release to her district on Monday, decrying the proposed cuts in elements of her district which are predominantly Black or Hispanic.
“These communities have lengthy fought for equitable entry to the poll field, and eradicating their polling areas is just unacceptable,” Corridor wrote. “Whereas I perceive the pressures of state rules and budgetary constraints, disenfranchising total communities isn’t a suitable response.”
Drew Shaw is a authorities accountability reporter for the Fort Price Report. Contact him at [email protected].
