County GOP in Texas to change voting rules to keep voter turnout after first-day chaos
The Republican Party in Dallas County will switch to a statewide voting system for the May 26 state election after voters experienced major disruptions during the first convention earlier this month due to the precinct-based system.
In a statement Tuesday announcing the decision, Dallas County Republican Party Chairman Allen West said “there is a time to know when to seek success and not go too far.”
“I have made the decision that seeking to conduct location-based operations on an explosive election day exposes the DCRP to significant risk and voter confusion,” West wrote. “From the end of April to May there will be municipal elections and early voting. All these elections will be voted in the whole region. The transition from one-day elections to centers will cause a lot of disruption.”
But West would not rule out a return to the precinct program after the meeting, saying that his district group “successfully passed the basic non-aligned task on March 3” and that “we can take that success, evaluate the lessons learned and improve the process and procedures for March 2028.”
Often, political parties in Texas can dominate primary voting. Democrats and Republicans often run elections jointly and delegate tasks to county election officials, who have used statewide polling stations in recent cycles to allow voters to cast their ballots wherever it’s convenient for them.
But Republicans in Dallas County, the second most populous county in Texas, chose to run their primaries separately at the county level in the March election, forcing Democrats to do the same.
The change left thousands of voters confused about where they were supposed to go on March 3. Some voters were thrown out, others cast their ballots for a while.
A Dallas County judge ordered Democratic polling places to stay open for an additional two hours on March 3, but that decision was soon blocked by the Texas Supreme Court.
In response to West’s announcement, Texas Democratic Party Chairman Kendall Scudder said Republicans were “trying to repair the damage they caused” after “creating chaos on Election Day.”
“For months, Democrats warned that forcing a return to the precinct-only system during Election Day would confuse voters, create long lines, and turn people away from voting, and that’s what happened. This was an entirely avoidable failure that wasted taxpayer dollars and undermined voter confidence,” Scudder said in a statement.
The Williamson County Republican Party in Texas also used advanced polling sites on March 3rd. A spokesman did not immediately respond to questions about whether the party would make the change in the May runoff.
In Dallas County, Republicans first made the switch to counting their primary votes by hand, a process based on conspiracy theories about the accuracy of voting machines that election experts warn can lead to errors and delayed results. Although they eventually abandoned their manual vote counting systems due to high costs, low-level voting still works.
GOP Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton face a Senate race on May 26, when voters will again decide the results of several House primaries.
