Resident takes on county, city officials for COVID-19 concerns during runoff election
When Matt Strong went to the Keller Town Hall over the weekend to vote early for the Dec. 8 mayoral runoff election, he didn’t like what he saw.
He said there were people crowded together and voting machines that were about a foot apart.
Strong, who has voted for almost 30 years, said that he was “appalled” by what he saw.
Besides the lack of social distancing, Strong described seeing people who were not wearing masks waiting to vote.
The state’s mask order doesn’t require that people wear face coverings when they are voting.
“My parents are older. I told my parents look, I don’t think it’s safe for you to vote,” he said.
Strong said his parents, who live in Keller, can’t vote by mail because they did not check the boxes properly on the application.
On Monday, Strong fired off emails to county and city officials including Elections Administrator Heider Garcia and Keller City Secretary Kelly Ballard. He also sent an email to the secretary of state’s office.
Strong provided the emails to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
When asked about why the voting machines were close together and why there wasn’t a larger room for voting, Garcia said he talked to election workers on Tuesday and told them to close off half of the voting machines to create better social distancing when people cast their ballots.
“We work with the city to find a location, then comes the discussion of where it will be in the town hall. The location is determined by the city,” Garcia said.
The law says the polling places must comply with accessibility guidelines, he said.
Garcia said because he knew there would be a large voter turnout in November, there were many voting machines set up to avoid long lines and waiting times of four to five hours.
But turnout for the runoff is much smaller. As of Tuesday afternoon, over 2,300 voted at the Keller Town Hall, he said. Early voting ends Friday.
Council member Tag Green and former councilman Armin Mizani are facing off in the runoff election.
Rachel Reynolds, a Keller spokeswoman, said the city uses the largest room in the town hall for voting.
She also said the city contacted the elections office during early voting for the Nov. 3 election to express concerns about the lack of social distancing and concerns over voter privacy since the machines were so close together.
But she said no changes were made until Tuesday when Keller’s building manager contacted the elections office.
For Strong, this is a “bureaucratic stalemate.” Strong said he understands there were issues in November because of the large voter turnout. In fact, he voted at another polling site for the general election.
“In retrospect, I wouldn’t have done it (vote in the runoff). It gave me the creeps to see people walking around without wearing masks. There are older people coming in to vote.”
This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 5:30 AM.