TARRANT COUNTY, Texas — After nearly five hours of public testimony Thursday, county commissioners moved to preserve the early voting sites on college campuses around Tarrant County.
County Judge Tim O'Hare had pushed to remove some early voting sites in proximity to other polling places. He argued having two sites within 1.5 miles of each other wastes manpower and money.
One proposal to consolidate polling places would've removed ballot boxes from UTA, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Tarrant County College's northeast and south campuses.
"I'd venture to guess there's almost no one who's going to vote in this election who won't vote because they have to go an additional 0.3 miles," O'Hare said, referring to the distance between Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and the polling place at the James Avenue Service center.
But dozens of speakers, including many students, told commissioners they'd be suppressing college students' vote by closing the sites. They also argued forcing students to other locations during the early voting period would lengthen lines at those polling places.
O'Hare contends locating early voting sites on college campuses amounts to special treatment for students that other demographics do not enjoy. He also lamented the distance between voting sites in cities like Keller and Southlake.
"I just don't think it's right or fair for people in one part of the county to have a voting location every 22 miles and for people in another part of the county - not coincidentally in Democrat precincts - to have locations less than half a mile apart," O'Hare said.
But commissioners were not choosing between locating polling places at college campuses or other locations, including senior centers, as O'Hare suggested. There was no proposal to add voting sites; only to remove locations or use all 51 sites that have been made available to the county.
Elections administrator Clint Ludwig previously told commissioners Tarrant County would need 60 or 70 early voting sites to prevent delays and lines. But he said the sites up for consideration Thursday are the only available polling places his staff could find, even after soliciting help from the commissioners who represent communities such as Southlake and Keller.
"It's a struggle we combat all year," Ludwig said. "We are asking a school, a church, a business owner to give us space sufficient enough to conduct voting for 12 straight days."
O'Hare and his republican colleague Manny Ramirez each noted some precincts have more early voting sites than others, though Ramirez said he wants to balance those numbers by adding sites to the lagging precincts instead of subtracting from the precincts that have more.
"It should not be controversial to have as many sites as possible," Ramirez said.
The college students who skipped class to attend Thursday's meeting cheered when Ramirez and Republican Gary Fickes joined Democrats to keep open every available early voting site. O'Hare was the only vote in favor of closing any site.
In an interview with WFAA, Ramirez said his decision to keep every available early voting site open was simple.
"I did not see this as a political decision at all," Ramirez said. "To me, this was not about politics, it was about principles. Ultimately, one of my principles is that everybody deserves free and fair access to the ballot box. So, I'll always be on the side of that. I didn’t see any catalyst or reason to change. I could think of a thousand political reasons to change, but ultimately, I couldn’t justify making that shift and taking away multiple sites where thousands of people have voted over the past decades."
Early voting begins on October 21.