Judge orders Dallas County to extend voting hours in Texas Democratic primary amid voter confusion
A Dallas County judge ordered Democratic polls to stay open for an extra two hours in the Texas primary Tuesday night amid confusion among voters about where to cast their ballots.
The move comes after Texas Democrats said thousands of voters in Dallas and Williamson counties showed up to the wrong polling place to cast their ballots. Democratic voters in Dallas County, the state’s second-largest by population, will now be able to vote until 9 p.m. local time.
While voters in these two districts were able to vote at any of the statewide polling places during early voting and in previous elections, Election Day voting in this year’s primary election was limited to party-specific polling places, leaving many people confused about where they should go. Some voters were turned away, while others voted provisionally, said Texas Democratic Party Director Terri Burke.
“About one-third of voters have issues,” Burke said in a phone interview, adding that he believes the district-based voting movement and redistricting have contributed to the confusion.
Political parties, not local governments, control Election Day voting in Texas primaries. Democrats and Republicans in the state often run elections jointly and outsource the work to county election officials, who in recent years have opted to have polling stations that allow voters to cast their ballots wherever it’s convenient for them.
But two counties, Dallas and Williamson, chose to run their primaries separately and at the county level, a move that forced Democrats to do the same.
In Dallas County, fueled by election conspiracy theories about the security of vote counting machines, Republicans have made the switch to counting their votes by hand. Dallas Republicans eventually scrapped their manual vote count plans due to high costs, but precinct-level voting plans moved forward.
Calls to the Dallas County elections department lead to an automated phone message noting that voting is based on Election Day, and that voters should vote at their assigned polling place. The message also provides an option to find “Election Day Polling Stations,” which may confuse voters.
A voter who does not appear on the list of registered voters can vote temporarily, but if it is not his polling place, it will not be counted.
Attorney Jasmine Crockett, who represents a congressional district based in Dallas and is running for the Democratic Senate nomination, criticized Republicans for this confusion.
“Both Dallas and Williamson County voters are getting used to voting across the country, including on Election Day,” his campaign said in a statement. “This effort to suppress the vote, confuse and disrupt voters is having the intended effect as people are turned away from the polls. We are monitoring the situation and working with our regional team to explore all solutions, including extending voting hours on Election Day.”
The campaign of Crockett’s primary opponent, Rep. James Talarico, said in a statement: “We are very concerned about reports of voter turnout.”
