They submitted maps for Tarrant County redistricting. What happened to them?
Tarrant County citizens who submitted map proposals for redistricting said Tuesday that their maps were not taken into account before commissioners met to vote to redraw precincts.
Euless resident and former Tarrant County Democratic Party chair Allison Campolo said she submitted a map on May 9.
Despite receiving a confirmation email upon submission, “we have heard no response or feedback whatsoever from the county or the redistricting process in general,” Campolo said.
The map never appeared on the county’s redistricting website before the June 3 commissioners court session in which the redistricting was on the agenda.
“This redistricting process and its lack of transparency in general has been very disappointing, certainly including this citizen map submission process,” she said.
Nine maps were submitted by citizens, Precinct 2 Commissioner Alisa Simmons said during heated debate at Tuesday’s meeting.
A county spokesperson said she had not had a chance to find out why the maps were not considered, as the court session was ongoing. An email sent to the county’s redistricting email address was not immediately returned.
Pablo Calderon submitted his map proposal on Saturday, but his was not included in the seven options commissioners chose from Tuesday.
“I exchanged a whole bunch of emails,” Calderon said. “I was told that they’d gotten some stuff, and then they said, ‘No, you haven’t submitted everything.’”
After getting some technical help from a friend, he submitted his map two days before the June 2 deadline.
“They only included their maps,” he said. “They did not include citizen maps.”
Speaking to reporters after the commissioners voted along party lines to approve a new map, Simmons said she was not shown the citizen maps until the night of June 2. One of the maps was submitted in early April, she said.
“Were those maps considered? Were the public’s maps considered?” Simmons said. “We just voted on a map without any consideration of the map submitted by the public.”
Five maps drawn by Adam Kincaid of the National Republican Redistricting Trust were initially proposed, but two more maps were added at the end of last week. All maps considered by the commissioners were submitted by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a county spokesperson said.
County Administrator Chandler Merritt initially deferred a question about the citizen-drawn maps to the commissioners, then later said through a county spokesperson that the commissioners were sent the citizen maps with other court materials over the two-month course of the redistricting process.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Roderick Miles told the Star-Telegram after Tuesday’s session that he was not given the citizen maps at any point before the vote.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Matt Krause said he saw the citizen maps, but could not say when they were given to him.
“I just preferred map seven to all those for the purposes that I was looking at, which was to maximize the partisan makeup of those maps,” he said.
Precinct 4 Commissioner Manny Ramirez likewise could not remember when he received the citizen-drawn maps.
“I appreciate everybody who took the time to plot data points on a map and put something together to submit to us. There were actually some that were really creative,” he said.
After speaking with reporters from several local TV stations, County Judge Tim O’Hare exited his office surrounded by three private bodyguards and declined to answer questions from the Star-Telegram and KERA. He told a Star-Telegram reporter to “buzz off.”
Rachel Royster contributed to this report.
This story was originally published June 3, 2025 at 4:36 PM.
