Tarrant County commissioners struck down an attempt to add 37 voting locations for the November election, two weeks after reducing polling sites by more than 100.
At the commissioners court’s Tuesday meeting, Democratic Commissioner Alisa Simmons proposed adding back some Election Day locations, as well as seven early voting sites across the county, primarily within Loop 820.
The court twice voted 3-2 along party lines against the additions with no comments from Republican commissioners who opposed the move.
“This is not about politics,” Simmons said as she proposed the new locations. “This is about doing the right thing for the people who put us here.”
On Aug. 19, commissioners approved along party lines the county’s 216 Election Day voting sites for the fall — down from 331 in 2023, the last odd-numbered November election — and 33 early voting sites, down from 43 in 2023.
County Judge Tim O’Hare and Election Administrator Clint Ludwig said the reductions aimed to save about $1 million in what is typically a low-turnout, nonpresidential election. Ludwig said he decided which polling sites to cut based on voter turnout in 2023, which saw about 12.5% registered voters cast ballots.
“I would venture to guess 99% of the public cannot name a single thing on (the 2025 ballot),” O’Hare said at the time.
At the Sept. 3 meeting, commissioners unanimously approved spending $18,600 to renovate the Tarrant County Elections Administration building at 2700 Premier St. in Fort Worth. The renovations will make the center compliant with a new Texas law requiring election equipment to be secured in a locked room overnight.
County staff had previously listed the law as a reason to cut several early voting locations, including at the University of Texas at Arlington, noting they could not easily meet the locked-room requirement.
Before the vote to renovate, Simmons said that while she supports ensuring secure elections, it is ironic that the county used the law as a reason to cut locations when its own centers did not meet the standards.
“We must ensure that the standards we apply to our communities are the ones we are already meeting ourselves,” Simmons said.
She later said all of her proposed new locations were compliant with state law.
About a dozen attendees who signed up to speak waited four and a half hours into the meeting before the item came up. All but one spoke in favor of the new locations.
“How do you expect our elders — using their own canes, pushing walkers, riding wheelchairs across a sprawling city, across a sprawling city with a suspect transportation system — how do you expect them to endure bus after bus, connection after connection, just to cast a vote?” said Michael Bell, a pastor and civil rights advocate. “You have turned a constitutional right into an obstacle course.”
Ken Shimamoto criticized commissioners for reducing polling locations the same summer they voted to redraw the commissioners’ precinct map to dramatically favor a Republican candidate to replace Simmons, also noting the state’s redrawing of its congressional map that cut longtime Democratic Fort Worth Rep. Marc Veasy’s District 33 out of the county.
“This is not an issue of cost. It is an issue of access,” Shimamoto said.
The lone speaker against the additional early voting locations, who declined to confirm his name, said he was in support of running the election in a fiscally conservative way.
He said those pushing for the additional amendments were making “Democratic hoopla”-based narratives about race he didn’t think were true.
Generally, a confused voter is a nonvoter, Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, told the Report in August.
No single law dramatically impacts voter turnout, rather, it’s the collective of ever-changing policies that can discourage people from voting, said Rottinghaus, who has studied poll placement and its impact on turnout.
“The more you move around how voting occurs, like the hours and the locations, the harder it is for voters to understand exactly what they’re supposed to do and when,” he said.
The last day to register to vote for the November election is Oct. 6, and the last day to apply for a ballot by mail is Oct. 24. Early voting runs from Oct. 20 to Oct. 31.
What’s on the ballot this November?
Texas voters will cast ballots for 17 constitutional amendments passed during the year’s legislative session, including:
- Several amendments boosting the homestead exemption, including one raising the exemption from ad valorem — according to value — taxation by a school district from $100,000 to $140,000.
- Permanently prohibiting the state government from imposing any tax on capital gains, whether realized or unrealized.
- Under specific conditions, authorizing judges to deny bail to people charged with serious felonies, including murder, aggravated assault and human trafficking.
- Devoting up to $1 billion a year in sales tax revenue to a new Texas Water Fund to support water infrastructure projects.
- A clarification that a voter must be a United States citizen.
- Enshrining into the Texas Constitution the inherent right of parents to care for and make decisions about raising their children, restricting the authority of state and local governments to be involved in a child’s upbringing.
In a special election:
- Residents of Texas Senate District 9 will see a special election to replace former state Sen. Kelly Hancock.
Drew Shaw is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at drew.shaw@fortworthreport.org or @shawlings601.
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