Tarrant County To Cut Election Day Voting Sites

On Tuesday September 1, the Tarrant County Commissioners voted to shutter over 90 polling locations on Election Day in the third largest county in the state. The vote, 3-2 fell down party lines with all three Republicans on the court voting for the measure.

Last month after a particularly contentious meeting where the room was cleared multiple times, the Commissioners Court voted to table their vote on potential closures until September 1. The meeting this week had a slightly tweaked polling closure plan with calls to have 224 polling sites on Election Day (down from the 316 in 2022).

Ahead of the meeting, protesters gathered outside the Commissioners Court. Current Commissioner Alisa Simmons, who is challenging current Republican County Judge Timothy O’Hare, spoke alongside Lieutenant Governor candidate Vikki Goodwin. Later in the day, Goodwin also testified against the proposed closures.

Ultimately, over 140 people signed up to speak at the commissioners meeting. Many waited in a carryover holding area outside for several hours as the temperature hovered near 100.

After several hours related to proclamations and measures, the commissioners turned their attention to the voting site closures. One of the first speakers was a student from the University of Arlington at Texas, the location of one of the proposed Election Day closures. She urged the commissioners to vote against the closures because UTA has worked so hard to foster voter engagement with students on campus.

Another woman opposed to the Election Day closures played a clip of Ronald Reagan on her phone. In the excerpt, the former president extolled the virtues of voting on Election Day.

Ahead of the vote, Clint Ludwig, the administrator of Tarrant County Elections, offered a brief presentation rationalizing cutting the number of Election Day voting locations to 224. When Commissioner Simmons asked Ludwig to justify the closures as Tarrant County continues to grow and his office expects record turnout in the midterm election, Ludwig noted the 224 sites meets requirements.

Simmons also offered a motion to add back several voting sites on college campuses including the University of Texas at Arlington and UT Health Science Center. The motion failed 3-2 on the party line vote.

After the final vote, a majority of the crowd still in the meeting jeered.