{"id":1728,"date":"2026-08-31T20:37:43","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T20:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1728"},"modified":"2026-08-31T20:37:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T20:37:43","slug":"texas-swing-county-could-shut-down-92-polling-places-before-midterm-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1728","title":{"rendered":"Texas Swing County Could Shut Down 92 Polling Places Before Midterm Election"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico is pushing for one of Texas\u2019 most important swing counties to drop plans to close nearly a third of its polling places before November\u2019s midterms.<\/p>\n

Amid public outcry, the Commissioners Court for Tarrant County \u2014 which contains Fort Worth and borders Dallas \u2014 plans to hold a vote on Tuesday on whether to shutter 92 of the polling places used in the 2022 election, many of which serve the city\u2019s poorer and minority populations.<\/p>\n

If Democrats flip the Senate this November, the road to that outcome will almost certainly run through Texas. A Democrat has not won a statewide election there since 1994, but Talarico may be in a position to break the trend \u2014 leading Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in most polls.<\/p>\n

Tarrant County narrowly supported then-Rep. Collin Allred, the Democratic challenger to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in 2024. Talarico said the closure of polling places was meant to suppress turnout and help Republicans cling to their advantage in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most powerful people in this county, the most powerful people in this country, don\u2019t want us to be able to vote easily,\u201d Talarico said at a press event Sunday, during which he argued that the closures would result in longer travel for voters and lower turnout, especially in heavily Black and Latino communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re here fighting for the rights of everybody,\u201d Talarico added. \u201cThe problem is when we let voting rights become a partisan issue. That\u2019s when we walk down a very dangerous path in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proponents of the closures have described them as a way for the county to save money, rather than a political tactic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re clearly not trying to suppress the vote,\u201d state Rep. Matt Shaheen (R-66), the chairman of the Texas House Elections Committee, told the Associated Press<\/em>. \u201cThat\u2019s a silly accusation.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Republican officials in Tarrant County have, in the past, explicitly tied closures of certain voting locations to partisan aims. In 2024, Republican County Judge Tim O\u2019Hare attempted, unsuccessfully, to remove several early voting sites on college campuses, a move that the county\u2019s GOP chairman said would have been \u201ca serious win for Republicans in Tarrant County.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In 2025\u2019s off-year elections, Republicans voted 3-2 to reduce the number of polling locations by more than a third and cut funding for free bus rides to the polls for low-income residents. The previous year, they introduced new rules blocking what they derided as \u201cleft-wing\u201d groups from registering voters inside county buildings.<\/p>\n

At the state level, meanwhile, Texas has carried out unprecedented mid-decade redistricting to hand more U.S. House seats to Republicans at the behest of President Donald Trump. And following Trump\u2019s false assertions that his loss in the 2020 election was marred by fraud, Texas introduced several new restrictions on mail-in voting that were found to have significantly reduced turnout.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s scheduled vote in Tarrant County comes after commissioners opted to table an earlier proposal that would have shuttered nearly half the county\u2019s polling places.<\/p>\n

An analysis of that plan showed that the lowest-income third of ZIP codes would lose nearly 58 percent of their Election Day polling sites, while the highest-income third would lose just under 22 percent. Majority-minority ZIP codes would have lost nearly 52 percent of their polling places, while majority-white ones would have lost just a third of theirs.<\/p>\n

A similar analysis has not yet been conducted for the new proposal. But civil rights groups still argue that the proposal will disenfranchise many voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cCutting the number of poll sites, especially at such a large scale, will harm Tarrant County voters and their right to participate in the democratic process \u2014 and cause particular harm to Black, Latino, and [Asian American and Pacific Islander] voters who already face significant barriers to exercising that fundamental right,\u201d wrote groups including the ACLU, the Legal Defense Fund, and the Texas Civil Rights Project, in a to the Commissioners\u2019 Court on Friday.<\/p>\n

They emphasized that the polling places slated to close under the new proposal were clustered in areas such as south and southeast Fort Worth and central and eastern Arlington, which have predominantly nonwhite populations.<\/p>\n

Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons, a Democrat who is running to unseat O\u2019Hare as county judge and spoke alongside Talarico on Sunday, argued that while it was an improvement on the earlier proposal, \u201cdropping 92 Election Day polling places is crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should not compare this proposal to the worst proposal,\u201d she said. \u201cWe should compare it to the access that Tarrant County voters actually had in 2022.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Trump Shares AI Video, Appearing to Falsely Claim US Bombed Iran\u2019s Kharg Island<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate candidate James Talarico is pushing Tarrant County to drop plans to close nearly a third of its polling sites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nTexas Swing County Could Shut Down 92 Polling Places Before Midterm Election - Smart Moving Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1728\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Texas Swing County Could Shut Down 92 Polling Places Before Midterm Election - Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Senate candidate James Talarico is pushing Tarrant County to drop plans to close nearly a third of its polling sites.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1728\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-31T20:37:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1728#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1728\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ec0d70042821fd684a174c8d0e8becfa\"},\"headline\":\"Texas Swing County Could Shut Down 92 Polling Places Before Midterm Election\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-31T20:37:43+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1728\"},\"wordCount\":826,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1728#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/08\\\/5c73fad3c9fdc4737ff0fa8b74114994.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Interesting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1728#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1728\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1728\",\"name\":\"Texas Swing County Could Shut Down 92 Polling Places Before Midterm Election - 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