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Officials from a large North Texas county this week decided that concerns are growing over GOP’s efforts to cut more than 100 election day voting sites and limit voting access ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Tuesday’s 3-2 votes by the Tarrant County commissioners, including Fort Worth, comes a day after President Donald Trump vowed to end his use of mail-in voting. The president lacks the one-sided power to decide how individual states conduct elections, but his declaration speaks of the lengthy and unfounded claims by conservatives that the country’s electoral system is unstable and vulnerable to widespread fraud. Trump repeatedly falsely claimed that he won the 2020 presidential election in place of Joe Biden.
After becoming a judge in 2022, Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare, who heads the committee’s courts, raised many questions about the safety of local elections, which will help set up election integrity units within the county. He and fellow Republican commissioners also cut funds to provide free bus rides to polls for low-income residents. “I don’t think it’s the county government’s responsibility to bring more people to the poll,” O’Hare said at the time. The committee also banned outside organizations from registering voters within the county building after raising concerns about what they said were the left-leaning group that held registered drives. (Propublica and The Texas Tribune previously wrote about the political influence of O’Hare in northern Texas.)
On Tuesday, O’Hare voted for two Republican commissioners in court, reducing the number of polling stations in the county from 331 in 2023. The decision also reduced the number of early voting sites.
County officials said the move is to save money as voters have historically been seen as low voter turnout in the presidential election.
Throughout the meeting, O’Hare repeatedly emphasized that the reductions were intended to make elections more efficient. He argued that both the 2019 switch to countywide voting allowed voters to vote on any voting site in the county, and that reductions were appropriate due to the expected low turnout.
“I’m venturing into speculating that 99% of the public can’t name a single one in the (2025 vote),” he said during the meeting.
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“Transporting a polling station far from someone else’s home means you’re less likely to vote because you’ve increased your voting costs,” said Rottinghaus, who studied the placement of votes and their impact on voting. “The cost can be your time. It can be your gas.”
County movements are in line with the national trends that Republican-led states and regions generally see as “silent and restricted” vote operations. They often stop illegal voting, or in recent cases in Tarrant County, they cut costs. This may appear to reduce the number of voting locations or reduce early voting times, he said.
Texas is leading multiple efforts to make it more difficult to go to the ballot, he said. For example, it is difficult to get a mail-order vote, and requires a photo ID when casting a vote.
Rather, a single law will not dramatically affect voter turnout, Lottin Tin House said it is rather a collection of ever-changing policies that allow people to stop voters from voting.
“The more you avoid how votes occur, such as time and place, the more difficult it will be for voters to understand exactly what they should do,” he said. “Confused voters are usually non-voters.”
This is not the first time Tarrant County has been at the forefront of a political headwind change. Earlier this summer, the O’Hare-led commissioner voted along the party’s lines to redraw the county district. Such changes usually occur after the 10-year census rather than mid-year. O’Hare admitted that the goal of the redrawn map is to support Republican candidates.
“It’s about Republicans vs Democrats,” O’Hare told Dallas television station WFAA ahead of the June 3rd vote. “If you pass on one of the maps you want to see your pass, there’s a very good chance that there will be three Republicans in Commissioner’s Court.”
In July, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made district changes to the agenda for a special legislative meeting. This appears to have been reluctant to accept him until he received a call from Trump to discuss the issue, the Tribune reported. The proposal sparked a nationwide battle over redrawing of Congress’ maps. On Wednesday, the GOP-led Texas House held its first vote to adopt a new map designed to increase the number of Republican seats in the US Congress.
Abbott also incited concerns over allegations of illegal voting last year, which announced the removal of more than 1 million voters from the state’s roll, including more than 6,500 potential non-citizens. However, investigations by Propublica, The Tribune and Lotebeat found that the number of non-citizens cited by the governor is likely to be inflated and in some cases they are likely to be wrong.
Concerns about cutting
At Tuesday’s meeting, more than 30 speakers condemned the move to cut polling and early voting locations, raising concerns that it amounted to suppression of black, Hispanic and college voters. Several speakers, called the Cut, called the failed efforts of O’Hare last year to remove eight early votes at university. Only one person spoke in favor of the reduction.
Sabrina Ball, who opposed the decline in polling stations, said she works as an election judge as Republican secretary for Manny Ramirez in northwestern Tarrant County. She said she saw firsthand people working hard to reach the location of the vote and find time to vote.
“You’re not saving money. You’re sacrificing democracy to save dollars,” she said.
Two Democrats, Roderick Miles Jr. and Alisa Simmons, voted against the change after trying to delay the decision.
“Everyone deserves the right to have a place they are comfortable and used to voting,” said Miles, who represents a predominantly black neighborhood with fewer voting locations. He later added, “To dismantle or take away from us what we worked so hard is unacceptable at any level.”
Simmons said it would be inappropriate to reduce the number of votes as Tarrant County’s population grows. She noted that Republicans in Commission Court used that growth as a reason to redeem school districts within the county’s precincts this year.
The Texas law passed in May reduces the county’s minimum election day voting location to 212, and limits the 2023 requirement to 347.
Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons, Democrat, first image, Republican Manny Ramirez, second image. Moves to reduce the number of polling stations passed by 3-2 votes. Credits: Drew Shaw/Fort Worth Report
Tarrant County election manager Clinton Ludwig said the site meets the state’s new “naked low” in case certain planned locations fall. He told the commissioner that the initial proposed cuts were aimed at saving about $1 million.
He said he saw about 12.5% of registered voters voter turnout in 2023, based on a reduction in voter turnout. Ludwig said location accessibility and the ability to safely store voting information was also considered.
He said the commissioner had no impact on the list and no partisan analysis was considered.
Ludwig and O’Hare’s offices did not immediately respond to requests to comment after the vote. O’Hare also did not respond to previous reports about him from Propublica and Tribune. Although he refused multiple interview requests and refused to answer questions, the spokesman sent the newsroom a list of eight of his key achievements, including cutting county spending and lowering local property tax rates.
Rottinghaus said in some counties there is a “yo-yo” every year in the number of polling stations they have. Elections like November usually have fewer places than presidential and midterm elections, he said. Still, he said the cuts in Tarrant County seem “offensive.”
When the number of polling stations decreases, it usually stays, Rottinghaus said.
“You’ll generally see the same number going on in the near future, at least,” he said.
He ultimately voted to reduce polling stations, but Ramirez pushed the first list of cuts back to the early voting site. Ramirez said the county must balance access and efficiency. The commissioner then added nine initial voting locations. O’Hare is the only vote for the move, and some of those sites say there is historically low turnout.
“The formulas for where these voting sites are located must be scientific,” Ramirez told the report prior to voting. “It’s population-based and needs to be close to an additional site-based.”
Several Fort Worth City Council members urged constituents to oppose efforts to lead the vote.
Councillor Carlos Flores, who represents parts of Northwest Fort Worth, issued a statement on the vote, saying there are few sites that have negative impacts on diverse communities. In a statement to the report, he added that limited polling stations and inconvenient voting procedures contribute to low turnout.
Some states limit the oil industry from earning revenue from mineral owners. It’s not North Dakota.
Meer Hall, representing Fort Worth in the southwest, sent a news release to her district on Monday, denounced the proposed cuts in parts of the district that are primarily black or Hispanic.
“These communities have been fighting for a long time for fair access to the ballot boxes. It’s simply unacceptable to remove their polling stations,” Hall wrote. “I understand the pressures of state regulations and budget constraints, but disenfranchising the entire community is not an acceptable response.”
Drew Shaw is the government’s accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Please contact him at [email protected].
