ROWLETT, Texas — Dallas County Commissioners have a decision to make about whether to keep Freedom Place Church in Rowlett as a polling location or not.
There is a back-and-forth brewing between the church and the city that, coincidentally, are across the street from each other. Dallas County decided to use Freedom Place Church as a polling location for the upcoming November elections.
"Mayor Margolis does not want a church to be a polling location, the city has decided that they are going to revoke the certificate of occupancy," said Hiram Sasser, General Counsel First Liberty Institute, which handles religious liberty cases across the country.
Liberty Institute and Freedom Place Church in Rowlett have sent a demand letter to the city, indicating they plan to file a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) after the city's move to potentially revoke the church’s certificate of occupancy.
Rowlett Mayor Blake Margolis has cited concerns over the church's capacity, noting that it has only five parking spaces at its frontage. In the 2020 election, 22,150 people voted early in Rowlett.
Pastor Kason Huddleston tells WFAA that the church has many more parking spots through parking agreements with nearby entities and public parking near downtown.
"We have a plan. We've worked with the elections office. They're very happy with our plan," said Pastor Kason Huddleston.
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.
"My issue is not with this church or pastor, but with the county that chose a facility that is insufficient for our Rowlett public," Margolis said in a statement.
However, an internal email from the mayor, which we have confirmed as authentic reads, "The Rowlett City Council will not allow voting to occur in any church building. That’s not where voting belongs." This stance is notable since Dallas County has several polling locations already situated in churches.
Margolis says Dallas County poorly communicated that the polling location had changed from the city site to a church site. In August 2023, the city council approved an ordinance that listed the Rowlett City Hall Annex as the voting location for the general election. The Mayor also says the city had offered up the local community center as a location for the polling place. He tells WFAA the county even took two tours of the facility during the summer. The Dallas County Elections Administrator Heider Garcia tells WFAA that while the community center had sufficient parking, the space for voting was not sufficient. Garcia says the city did then offer up a larger room in the same community center but the decision to use Freedom Place Church had already been made.
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.
The final decision on polling locations ultimately rests with the Dallas County Commissioners and they have to make a decision before early voting begins.