Tarrant takes step backward on voting — and it could have been worse | Opinion

A rare outbreak of bipartisanship on the Tarrant County Commissioners Court is often cause for celebration.

The court’s approval Tuesday of polling places for November’s election, however, doesn’t qualify. It was bipartisan enough. But the reason for the consensus is that the proposed list of sites for early voting and Election Day was so ill-conceived, poorly presented and badly communicated.

The original list offered by Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig would have left huge chunks of the county, including many Fort Worth residents, without a convenient location to cast a ballot. Well-established sites such as the Como Community Center were stripped from the roster. More reductions were made inside Loop 820 than in northeast Tarrant County. Voter turnout has recently been highest there, but it left the impression of sacrificing urban areas — and minority voters — for heavily Republican areas.

Commissioners were unhappy with the changes, as well as what they described as poor communication and little notice from county officials. They cleaned up the worst of it, voting to add back nine locations, including Como and more options for booming northwest Tarrant County. All four — two Republicans and two Democrats — pushed for more sites, while County Judge Tim O’Hare, a Republican, opposed the additions but supported the final overall package.

The county will still offer one-quarter fewer early voting centers (down from 44 to 33) than it did two years ago, the most recent comparable election. And on Election Day, there are 214 voting centers, compared to 330 in 2023.

Ludwig said he was trying to shave costs by more than $1 million. And considering the realities of low turnout in off-year elections and recent voting patterns, his job is not easy.

This year’s ballot is sparse, with 17 state constitutional amendments and a smattering of suburban municipal and school elections. But for Tarrant County, there’s one hugely significant race: a special election to replace state Sen. Kelly Hancock, who resigned to become state comptroller. The district contains nearly half the county, concentrated in (but not limited to) the northern half.

There’s a cause-and-effect question at work. Do citizens in places such as O’Hare’s home of Southlake simply vote more reliably, or does a lack of resources hamper voting in other areas?

Government should be responsive to data and adapt to voting behavior. But for any election, even with low turnout expected, a minimum level of service must be maintained. After all, the basic right of the franchise is at stake if voters face hardships that make it nearly impossible to get to the polls. The county can’t solve every voter’s problems, but it must make sure voting is uniformly convenient. And placing just two voting centers in central Fort Worth did not fit the bill.

Democratic Commissioner Alisa Simmons of Arlington made a good point. Republicans cited the county’s recent population growth earlier this year to partly justify unusual mid-decade changes to commissioners’ precincts. How then, she asked, can the county be removing voting locations instead of adding them?

The instinct to save money is always welcome. Ludwig pointed out that some locations have gone hours without seeing a single voter. But elections are one of the county’s highest priorities, and O’Hare and a relatively new administration have proved adept at finding cost savings throughout county government. They could do so here without breaking the bank.

The other extreme of the argument isn’t the answer. Democratic Commissioner Roderick Miles of Fort Worth, in an otherwise powerful speech about the importance of voting rights and correcting past oppression, said that if just one voter showed up to a center in the entire voting period, it was worth having it open. There’s a better balance to be achieved.

Ludwig vowed that no partisan consideration went into the Elections Office’s choices. But there’s a disturbing pattern of Republican officials, from the White House to the courthouse, trying to make voting harder, often for minorities. O’Hare supported an effort last year to remove polling sites from some college campuses, including UT-Arlington, a rare loss for him in nearly three years as judge.

The latest fight coincided with more disturbing election rhetoric from President Donald Trump. He said Monday that he would try to eliminate mail-in balloting and even the use of voting machines by executive order. That’s power he does not have — states control elections, though Congress can also regulate them — but he could certainly make life even more difficult for voters and election administrators.

Some Republicans, fueled by conspiracy theories and illegitimate claims of widespread fraud, won’t be happy until voting is restricted to just Election Day, with only paper ballots. Any changes in that direction would make an election in a county of more than 2 million people a nightmare.

The best response to such efforts to restrict voting is for citizens to turn out like never before. Early voting begins Oct. 20. More residents should tune in, even for a sleepy election, and prove that the right to vote is too precious to be minimized with changes such as the ones afoot in Tarrant County government.

This story was originally published August 21, 2025 at 4:53 AM.