Plan to cut number of polling sites in a major Texas county draws protests as Senate race looms

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A plan in one of Texas' largest counties to use dozens fewer polling locations than in previous years is drawing protests from Democrats who say the reductions could create confusion in the November midterm elections.

The proposal, set for a vote Tuesday, would reduce the number of polling locations across booming Tarrant County, which borders Dallas and includes Fort Worth. County officials say the plan would save resources by eliminating low-turnout sites, noting voters would still have more than 200 locations where they could cast ballots.

Texas' third-largest county is home to more than 2 million people and a key battleground in the U.S. Senate race between Democratic state Rep. James Talarico and Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. On Sunday, Talarico urged the county to reject the proposal.

“The most powerful people in this county, the most powerful people in this country, don’t want us to be able vote easily,” Talarico said at a news conference.

If the plan is approved, Tarrant County would have 92 fewer polling locations on Election Day than it did during the 2022 midterms.

Closing polling locations in Texas is not a new trend, county elections officials say. The trend has been accelerated by an embrace of countywide voting sites and the difficulty in recruiting poll workers. Other Texas counties have also considered or already reduced the number of polling locations for November while some have added more.

“We’re clearly not trying to suppress the vote,” Rep. Matt Shaheen, the Republican chairman of the House Elections Committee, said of polling site reductions in Texas. “That’s a silly accusation.”

Tarrant County Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig has said the reductions would allow the county to eliminate locations that serve few people.

Locations near bus stops that complied with federal accessibility laws were prioritized to remain open, according to a county statement. Officials said the average distance between Election Day sites under the plan was 1.5 mile (2.4 kilometers).

“All of this is accomplished without the wasteful practice of placing polling sites directly across the street from one other,” said Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare, a Republican and the county’s top administrator.

Spokespeople for Paxton did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Texas law lets each of the state’s 254 counties decide how many polling places to use. Tarrant County adopted countywide voting in 2019 but didn’t immediately begin reducing the number of polling locations.

On Friday, the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union joined voting rights groups in signing a letter urging the county to reject the proposal, saying the closures would be strongly felt in areas with high percentages of minority voters. About a third of the county’s residents are Hispanic, and about 19.2% are Black, according to Census data.

Bastrop County Elections Administrator Kristin Miles, whose county is outside Austin, said reducing the number of polling sites could make sense, depending on how heavily they are used. Miles noted that there would be little point, for instance, in opening sites in rural areas that may only serve a handful of voters throughout the day.

Carol Raburn, who worked the March primaries as an election judge in Tarrant County, called the proposal a form of voter suppression.

"Because what happens when people don’t have a convenient place to go vote that’s not too far away from where they are, where they live? They just don’t go vote because they’ve made it so difficult,” she said.

Wilder is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.