Tarrant County cuts over 100 voting locations
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Tarrant County is reducing its voting locations for this November. Photo: Matthew Busch/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Tarrant County commissioners have decided to cut more than 100 voting locations for this November's constitutional amendment election.
Why it matters: Officials say the move will save the county about $1 million.
- But opponents say it amounts to voter suppression and eliminates voting opportunities in lower-income minority neighborhoods.
Flashback: The decision comes months after the commissioners court voted to redraw commissioner precincts in an effort to flip one precinct from Democrat to Republican.
The big picture: This week's vote fell along partisan lines, with the two Democrats on the five-member commissioners court opposing the polling site reductions. They also opposed the rare mid-decade county redistricting.
- The fight mirrors what's happening in the state Legislature, where Republicans have pushed to redraw congressional maps to add GOP seats in the U.S. House.
State of play: Tarrant County and its booming population has grown purple in recent elections, moving away from a staunchly conservative voting history.
- Former President Biden won the county in 2020. President Trump won the county last year, but fellow Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz narrowly lost to his Democratic challenger Colin Allred.
Zoom in: Most of the Election Day polling site cuts are inside Loop 820, which includes the heart of Fort Worth.
- The commissioners voted 4-1 — with County Judge Tim O'Hare opposed — to add back nine early voting locations, though it's still a reduction from the number used during the last constitutional amendment election in 2023.
Friction point: Elections administrator Clint Ludwig said many of the polling sites that were cut have low voter turnout, especially during smaller statewide elections.
- But some commissioners said the elections staff hadn't considered accessibility to voting locations.
- "What I was hoping to hear was that there was some scientific method that based it off population, geography, but I didn't hear that," Commissioner Manny Ramirez, a Republican, said before Tuesday's vote.
What they're saying: "It's not about money. It's about access," Commissioner Roderick Miles Jr., a Democrat, said. "If it's only one person that goes to a voting site, so be it, that's one person who got to participate in the democratic process."