Republican Tarrant County judge sets vote on election sites while Democrats are away

Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare has called a special meeting of the Commissioners Court to vote on modified lists of early voting sites on Thursday, as well as consider rescinding a decision that allows volunteers inside county buildings to register people to vote.

Precinct 1 Commissioner Roy Brooks and Precinct 2 Commissioner Alisa Simmons — the only Democrats on the court — will be out of town on that day.

O’Hare and others on the court have known for over a month that Brooks and Simmons will be out of town on that day, Brooks said. The court approved their travel to Washington on Aug. 6 to attend an event for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

“I think it’s a pretty partisan and arrogant move on his part,” said Brooks, adding that the special meeting is a way to disenfranchise half of the residents in Tarrant County. “The optics are terrible, and the politics is even worse.”

Simmons said she told County Administrator Chandler Merritt last week that she will not be in town on Thursday, but that Merritt scheduled the meeting for that day anyway.

O’Hare and Merritt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Precinct 4 Commissioner Manny Ramirez, who was absent during the vote on early voting sites Sept. 4, told the Star-Telegram that he was unaware that Brooks and Simmons were scheduled for out of town travel on Thursday.

Ramirez declined to comment on whether he would call for the meeting to be moved or how he would vote on the early voting sites list, but said that “eliminating college campus voting sites is not a priority” for him.

Majority-minority campuses reduced on new early voting site lists

The commissioners voted along party lines on a list of 50 early voting sites at last week’s court session after O’Hare objected to sites on college and university campuses. The list was rejected, since it did not receive a majority of votes.

Tarrant County Election Administrator Clint Ludwig told the county commissioners that day he would ideally like to have 60 to 70 early voting sites.

Despite that recommendation, the agenda for Thursday’s special meeting includes three lists, all of which have fewer sites than the original, which included sites on eight campuses.

That list had early voting sites at UT Arlington, TCU, the UNT Health Science Center, the Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary and four Tarrant County College campuses.

The three lists up for voting on Thursday all include sites at TCU and UNTHSC. None has a site at the seminary, and only two have a site at UT Arlington. Each of the lists cut the number of TCC sites down to two.

The new lists are “clearly targeted at race and ethnicity,” Simmons said.

TCU’s student body is nearly two thirds white, according to the university’s website. The university had just over 12,700 students enrolled last fall.

Just 22% of UT Arlington’s more than 41,000 students are white, according to its website. Hispanic students make up the largest ethnic group at 32%, while 13% are Black and 12% are Asian.

At 36.6%, Hispanic students also make up the majority at TCC campuses, according to that institution’s website. Just under 26% identify as Anglo, and 17.3% are African-American. Asian students make up 6.8%.

“My colleagues are essentially gerrymandering the vote,” Simmons said.

Voter registration issues on the agenda for reversal

The meeting’s agenda also includes an item to rescind an amendment allowing volunteer deputy registrars to register voters inside county buildings.

O’Hare was the sole “no” in a 3-1 vote to approve the amendment at the court’s regular meeting last week.

Precinct 3 Commissioner Gary Fickes, a Republican, voted for the amendment alongside Brooks and Simmons. Republican Manny Ramirez attended the first few minutes of the session, but was absent during the vote, citing a prior engagement.

The court voted 4-0 in July to classify the activity of volunteer deputy registrars as “non-regular use” and banned them from setting up inside county buildings. Volunteer deputy registrars are trained and certified by the county to register voters.

“Tarrant County welcomes participants in its Volunteer Deputy Registrar Program to serve and assist in registering eligible citizens to vote,” reads a page on the county’s website.

Requests from three voter registration organizations to use specific county facilities are back on the agenda for Thursday’s special meeting in expectation of the amendment’s repeal.

The Texas Freedom Network, Battleground Texas and Jolt Initiative placed requests on last week’s agenda, but legal counsel advised the commissioners that the items were rendered moot after the court approved the amendment. Battleground Texas is clearly a Democrat-leaning organization, according to its website, but its voter registration division claims to be nonpartisan.

Those organizations did not respond to requests for comment.

Daniel Taylor, a volunteer deputy registrar from Fort Worth who volunteers for Battleground Texas, called O’Hare a “sore loser” and accused him of voter suppression.

“He’s trying to engage in voter suppression because he doesn’t want people registering other people to vote,” Taylor said.

Battleground Texas’ website states that its aim is to make sure that “a Republican can never make it to the White House again.” But Taylor, who is also precinct chair for the Democratic party in Tarrant County, noted that he and other volunteer deputy registrars he works with are under the Battleground Texas Engagement Fund, a nonpartisan wing of the organization.

“When I am registering voters, if you want to tell me you want to vote for somebody I absolutely hate, I will do the same good job of registering you as I would do for anyone,” he said.