Gethsemane Missionary Baptist Church in the Joppa area of Dallas is essential, and not only as a place of worship. It’s where residents of the neighborhood go to vote.
“They don’t have a lot of places to go,” said Linda Johnson, a poll worker who has worked at Gethsemane. “They’re old, they’ve been in that neighborhood a long time. I don’t want that closed down, ever.”
The church is one of many locations that Dallas County reviewed during its countywide survey of polling places. And though Gethsemane Missionary Baptist may need some improvements to help people with disabilities, community members like Johnson are making sure it remains the place to cast a ballot.
Tensions often run high when local election officials talk about where exactly to locate polling places. The state of Texas shed more than 750 voting locations between 2012 and 2018, according to a report from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. That coincides with the period after the U.S. Supreme Court nullified a portion of the Voting Rights Act.
Many of those closures came from counties, including Dallas, that converted to a vote center model for elections — meaning people can vote at any location. The state allows, but does not require, counties to get community input, the report states.
Yet Dallas County saw there was a limit to the number of polling sites it could handle during elections in the first half of 2022. The county elections department found it difficult to recruit enough poll workers and judges — the folks who manage the voting site.
In response, officials wanted to reduce the number of locations during low-turnout local elections without sacrificing convenience or access.
“The same interest there is in voting in an election is the same interest there is in working in an election,” said Dallas County Elections Director Michael Scarpello. “For a May election on a Saturday, it’s very difficult.”
To get input and buy-in from Dallas County’s many communities, the elections department looked at statistics from over 500 polling locations the county has used in the past. These included turnout data and the distances voters traveled from home. The department also surveyed each site to examine parking and compliance with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.
From January to March of this year, the county held regular meetings with the Vote Center Advisory Committee. The VCAC is made up of community organizations, local government, political party chairs, and community members. It was at these meetings, Scarpello said, where people with on-the-ground knowledge could tell the elections department why a site with fewer voters — like Gethsemane — may nevertheless be the only viable option for a community.
Ultimately the VCAC, with input from commissioners, recommended that the county use 367 Vote Centers for low-turnout elections like this coming May. It also recommended using about 100 additional centers for high turnout cycles.
Commissioners approved the plan at a meeting Tuesday.
Because of the lower number of sites for May, Carol Farquhar of the League of Women Voters said the county should continue a marketing campaign that lets people know they can vote at any voting location.
“Getting the word out to everyone who wants to vote about where they may vote is essential,” Farquhar said. “Change happens, but it doesn’t have to be hard.”
As for Gethsemane Missionary Baptist, Scarpello said the church may need temporary ramps or other adjustments to make it more ADA-compliant, but he expects people will vote there on May 6. He called it a perfect example of why it was so important to have the VCAC involved.
Both Johnson and her colleague Claudia Fowler thanked commissioners for keeping Gethsemane on the list of vote centers.
“I know how this could have went,” said Fowler, who called herself Joppa’s “diva judge” on election days. “Because if you close one, especially in the Black community, then it’s hard to get it back open. And that poll has been open since 1942, ‘43.”
Got a tip? Email Bret Jaspers at bjaspers@kera.org. You can follow Bret on Twitter @bretjaspers.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gifttoday. Thank you.
