Advocates fight to keep early voting locations at college campuses in Tarrant County

FORT WORTH – Student leaders, community advocates and elected officials met at UT Arlington on Wednesday to urge Tarrant County commissioners to keep early voting locations on college campuses.

"Today, we are here to stand up for our right to vote as students on college campuses and to oppose the reckless grab at power and explicit action of voter suppression and intimidation," said Emeri Calloway, a TCC student and member of Tarrant County Young Democrats.

Tarrant County Judge Tim O'Hare called a special meeting for Thursday to determine early voting sites for the November election.

Commissioners will consider eliminating polling locations at UT Arlington, the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and two Tarrant County College campuses. The initial list of 50 early voting sites included them but failed to get approval at last week's court session.

County data from the 2020 presidential election shows that nearly 10% of people who voted early in Tarrant County cast their ballot at college campuses. Close to 10,000 of those voters used the polling station at UT Arlington.

Early voting numbers at college campuses in the 2020 presidential election:

• Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary: 3,838 early voters
• Tarrant County College Northeast Campus: 8,273 early voters
• Tarrant County College Northwest Campus: 9,871 early voters
• Tarrant County College South Campus: 3,988 early voters
• Tarrant County College Southeast Campus: 13,751 early voters
• Tarrant County College Trinity River: 2,571 early voters
• Texas Wesleyan University: 2,989 early voters
• UNT Health Science Center: 10,940 early voters
• University of Texas at Arlington: 9,754 early voters

O'Hare called the number and proximity of early voting sites a "waste of money and manpower" during court last week.

"I think the purpose of choosing locations to vote is to give the biggest access to the public, and some of these campuses don't provide the biggest access to the public," the judge said last Wednesday. "But I do see it's an attempt to get more students to vote. I don't think that's the role of the commissioners court, to make sure we get more of this group or that group to vote."

The Democratic commissioners argued against reducing access to voters.

"It's not trying to favor one group over another," said Precinct 1 Commissioner Roy Charles Brooks. "It's to make it easier for people to vote, and that is the job of this commissioners court – to make it easier for everyone to vote."

O'Hare called the special meeting for a day when the only Democrats on the court are scheduled to be out of town. The court authorized their travel to Washington, D.C., last month.

"This appears to be a targeted attempt to limit certain members of the commissioners court's ability to participate," said Commissioner Alisa Simmons. "Unfortunately, taking a laptop into the White House is not permissible. Tomorrow I will seek to fight Tarrant County voter suppression as a virtual attendee of the Commissioners Court and in my conversations with White House officials."

O'Hare was not available for an interview with CBS News Texas on this topic Wednesday and declined to answer our questions about the timing of the meeting or allegations of voter suppression.

Tarrant County GOP Chairman Bo French is asking commissioners to support the option that eliminates UTA's early voting site. He called it the most problematic polling location in Tarrant County because it's not easily accessible for the general public.

In an email to CBS News Texas, French said: "We only have 50 polling locations. Don't you agree they should all be the most accessible to the most people? Democrats always cry 'voter suppression' when they don't have a good argument. In this case they do not."

If the UTA voting location is eliminated, the closest option for students will be about a mile away from campus.

"With not having a car – all of campus is pretty walkable, but a lot of Arlington isn't walkable," said UT Arlington student Ariana Moore. "There's a lack of sidewalks. It just makes it a lot more accessible to all the students who are registered to vote to be able to do it here since they're already here."

UT Arlington released this statement on the campus voting location: "The University of Texas at Arlington has been fortunate enough that Tarrant County has designated it as a voting location for many years and the University appreciates opportunities to host voting on the UTA campus. Doing so benefits our local community neighbors and UTA's more than 41,000 students and nearly 5,000 employees, who live on or in close proximity to campus, attend classes on campus or work on campus - many of whom are residents of Tarrant County."

Students and advocates are vowing to fight to keep voting sites on college campuses.

"All of these proposals have one thing in common, one insidious thing in common, and that is they make it more difficult for young people to vote and they make it more difficult for people of color to vote," said Rep. Chris Turner, Texas House District 101 (D).

Tarrant County commissioners will meet at 10 a.m. on Thursday. You can view their options for early voting locations below.

   Mini-packet_Commissioners Court Special Called Meeting 09.11.24 by myers.doug328 on Scribd
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