Tarrant’s proposed cuts to polling sites is ‘voter suppression,’ rally says
Ahead of Tuesday’s Commissioners Court meeting, Democrats running for office statewide and in Tarrant County joined leaders from local chapters of the NAACP, LULAC and other public advocacy groups to condemn the county’s proposed polling location closures.
“These things have occurred before, but it’s time to stand up and let it be known we cannot accept decisions that folks are making for us,” said Estella Williams, president of the Fort Worth Tarrant County NAACP. “The time is for us to stand strong and to stand vigilant in our fight for what is right.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, after the protest and hearing from dozens of people in public comment, the commissioners agreed that the proposed number of voting sites was too small, and they tabled the vote until a later meeting.
State Rep. Vikki Goodwin, an Austin Democrat who is running for lieutenant governor, contrasted Tarrant County’s growing number of registered voters with the proposal to slash the number of voting sites.
She said the plan was “obvious voter suppression.”
Peace and Justice Center President Aftab Siddiqui, who said he was representing minority voters, especially Muslim communities living in Tarrant County, raised concerns about long lines if the plan went through and the proposal’s possible effect on voter turnout.
“I never thought that we would have to start monitoring the attack on our democratic rights in the country that we love and settled in,” he said.
State Sen. Nathan Johnson, a Dallas Democrat running for Texas attorney general, pushed back against the idea that the locations proposed for cuts were underutilized or that the closures are due to staffing shortages.
“So what is it really about?” he said. “Is it about the fact that Tarrant County is drifting Democrat? Are they worried that if everybody can get out and vote, even in Republican areas, they’re going to reject the MAGA nonsense that’s sitting on this Commissioners Court, that is running statewide up and down the ballot, that is running in local elections? I think they’re worried that people will actually vote.”
Johnson likened the proposal to “trying to lose weight by taking out your arteries.”
“That’s not what we need to be doing here,” he said.
Kevin Burge, a Democrat running against Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne for Congress, reiterated that his campaign, the campaign of district clerk candidate Nathan Smith and Tarrant County Young Democrats are prepared to take the county to court if more sites aren’t added.
Their demands are simple, he said: Restore election day polling locations to a level “at least congruent” with 2025, reinstate college campus voting sites, publish the methodology for determining which polls closed and hold a meeting for additional voter input.
“We know the answer to why they close these sites, and that is through disenfranchisement, and we will fight it,” Burge said.
Election Administrator Clint Ludwig previously declined to comment on the potential litigation.
“I know that this November, come hell or high water, I’m gonna fire every GOP leader on the ballot, from the top all the way to the bottom, right here in Tarrant County,” said Sabrina Ball with Indivisible Texas 12.
This story was originally published August 4, 2026 at 1:16 PM with the headline "Tarrant’s proposed cuts to polling sites is ‘voter suppression,’ rally says."