Dallas County Republican Party primary voting locations violate state law, says one commissioner.
Questions about the legality of election day vote centers could lead to contested races.
Commissioner Andy Sommerman, a Democrat, says 72 of 245 Republican primary voting locations don't follow the law.
Texas redistricting rules allow precincts with fewer than 3,000 voters to combine with another precinct — as long as together they don't exceed 5,000 total voters.
Republican Party chair Allen West says their combined precincts don't.
"I don't think we're over that number," he said. "And I think that if [Sommerman] would have just called me and said, 'Let's sit down and look at your numbers and the GIS data that you use and mine,' we could have resolved this instead of him trying to grandstand and accuse us of doing something illegal, which we are not."
West said that Republican Secretary of State Jane Nelson gave the party's combined precincts her blessing.
Republicans wanted precinct-specific voting for the March 3 primary, but nearly one third of the vote centers cross precinct lines.
"That the Republican Party would insist on precinct-only voting because they want to go to the precincts, and then illegally combine precincts so that people can vote in an illegal way on this map — That hypocrisy astounds me," Sommerman said.
The Republicans' months-long effort to count primary election ballots by hand would have automatically required separate elections.
Though that initiative was abandoned because of logistics, cost and staffing, the local party elected to still hold its own election.
When the Dallas County Republican Party chose separate elections, it forced people voting in the Republican or Democratic primary to vote at their own designated polling location on primary Election Day in March.
Early voting can still be done at any 74 county-wide locations beginning Feb. 17, which county leaders and voter advocacy groups have encouraged to avoid confusion.
People who choose to vote on March 3 can only do so at their one designated polling center.
As of late last week those polling locations had not been finalized.
Elections Administrator Paul Adams said during commissioners court Feb. 3 that separate Republican and Democratic elections has stressed planning.
"This is a severe strain on the office, he said. "Because as we look at making changes, we're at a point where — we're 28 days from this election — to make sure that the public can be made aware and then internally we can order enough supplies and make sure everything is properly delivered."
The elections department found that some locations on the county Republican Party's list were unavailable and that some Democratic Party locations could have been, too.
That delayed informing voters where to go on Election Day.
An interactive map of primary election day voting locations is now live on the Dallas County elections website.
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