Officials in Tarrant County, Texas, have approved a plan to cut dozens of polling sites ahead of November's midterm elections, with 92 fewer sites expected compared to the 2022 elections, sparking an outcry from Democrats and voting rights advocates. The 3-2 vote to authorize the cut in the Lone Star State's third-most populous county, which has recently been seen as a blue or "purple" swing county, was strictly across party lines. The three Republicans on the Tarrant County Commissioners Court—County Judge Tim O'Hare and commissioners Matt Krause and Manny Ramirez—voted on Tuesday to green-light 224 polling locations for the November 3 election, which are set to serve an estimated 1.3 million voters.
That is down from 316 in the 2022 midterms. The two Democratic commissioners, Alisa Simmons and Roderick Miles Jr., voted to reject the plan. Under Texas law, counties have the power to decide how many polling sites they use.
The 92-site reduction was already something of a compromise: An earlier proposal would have cut 140 polling sites instead, but it was abandoned after Tarrant County Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig agreed with opponents that the plan would eliminate too many locations. The approved plan also sees a small reduction in early voting locations, 47 this fall compared with 50 in 2022. Newsweek contacted Ludwig for comment by email on Wednesday morning.
Ludwig, who proposed the reduction, wrote in an email to commissioners that the plan "concentrates locations where voters choose to vote and where facilities best meet ADA [accessibility] and operational standards," according to a news release from O'Hare. Ahead of the vote on Tuesday, Ludwig said he was "confident" the proposal would "give everybody that wants to vote the opportunity to vote." O'Hare, a Republican, also rejected claims by opponents that the reduction constitutes voter suppression. "The updated plan averages 2.85 miles between early voting locations and 1.56 miles between Election Day polling locations.
All of this is accomplished without the wasteful practice of placing polling sites directly across the street from one another," he said, as reported by ABC News. O'Hare said locations were cut for "practical reasons," adding: "State law also requires early voting equipment to be stored in a locked room. Those are legislative requirements, and this county follows them.
Every voter deserves a safe, accessible location with secure equipment, and this plan does that." Tarrant uses countywide vote centers, allowing registered county voters to use any polling location on Election Day. The approval of the plan on Tuesday came after commissioners heard testimony from more than 100 speakers, most of whom expressed opposition to the site cuts, during a meeting that lasted over eight hours. Critics—including voters, voting rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers—have argued that removing polling sites in familiar community and neighborhood locations, including the University of Texas at Arlington, is likely to make voting less convenient, particularly for people with limited transportation.
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