ROWLETT, Texas — A Dallas County judge has ruled to add a second early voting location in Rowlett amid an intense back-and-forth dispute between the city and Freedom Place Church.
Tuesday the judge granted a temporary restraining order and ordered the Rowlett Community Centre as an alternate early voting polling location.
“Every Rowlett citizen should have an accessible place to vote," Mayor Blake Margolis said during a Tuesday news conference.
Mayor Margolis has cited concerns over Freedom Place Church's capacity, noting that it has only five parking spaces at its frontage and the lack of accessibility for disabled and elderly people.
However, Pastor Kason Huddleston told WFAA that the church has many more parking spots through parking agreements with nearby entities and public parking near downtown.
The petition was filed Tuesday morning by Kyle Pugh, with the law firm C. Kyle Pugh, PC, on behalf of Robert Margolis, Senior Citizens of Rowlett, Michael Britt and Barbara Britt, "seeking to enforce the Texas Elections Code," in regards to the voting location.
"Rowlett Community Centre has an abundance of parking, they have an abundance of ADA compliant parking, they have greater infrastructure to accommodate the citizens of Rowlett when they vote in this critical election," Pugh said Tuesday.
The judge did not say that the church could not be a polling location, but that the community center would also be a polling location.
Mayor Margolis has also raised the issue of the church's involvement in "partisan politics." WFAA has learned the church’s pastor has openly endorsed a local candidate. Despite these concerns, Mayor Margolis insists that the decision is not personal and that he holds no animosity toward the church.
"This is not about the church or the pastor. It's about what is right versus wrong and what is right is that every person has an accessible place to vote," Margolis said.
The question about using the church site as a polling place unearthed something else — Freedom Place Church's certificate of occupancy was erroneously approved last year. The church feels targeted after, it claims, the city has threatened to revoke the certificate of occupancy. The mayor says the certificate only came up because of questions of capacity. Without a certificate of occupancy, neither the church nor the polling place can operate.
In a letter to the city, First Liberty Institute accused Rowlett of violating the U.S. and Texas Constitutions by threatening to close the church's doors. They also requested the city withdraw its letter regarding the church's occupancy certificate.
"We are in discussions with the City, and we are working on resolving the matter," Hiram Sasser, the Executive General Counsel at First Liberty Institute said in a statement Tuesday.
Dallas County has the right to appeal Tuesday's ruling.
Early voting begins Oct. 21 and runs until Nov. 1. Election Day is Nov. 5.
