Voters erupted at a Texas commissioners' meeting as Republican officials cut nearly a third of the polling places in a battleground county that Democrats have started to win.
On Tuesday, the Tarrant County Commissioners Court voted 3-2 along party lines to approve 224 Election Day polling sites for November, down from 316 in the 2022 midterms, reported the Texas Tribune.
More than 100 speakers testified during a meeting that ran more than eight hours, and most of them opposed the cuts, the Tribune reported.
One Tarrant County resident spent his allotted minute at the microphone demanding that County Judge Tim O'Hare, a Republican, look up from the dais and meet his eyes.
"What could possibly be so important? Mr. O'Hare, can you listen to me, please? Hello?" the resident said.
"Yeah," O'Hare answered.
"Can you look at my eyes, please?" the resident pressed.
"I can hear every word you're saying. You can use your minute however you want to," O'Hare replied.
"Yeah. Look down because…" the man continued.
"I'm going to," the county judge snapped.
"Down is [where] you're going in November," the resident shot back, drawing laughter from the room. "So keep looking where you're going. Okay?"
"We're going, and we're knocking on doors, and we're bringing people out," he said. "And we're telling them where the voter locations are, and we're helping them get there, and nothing you can do can stop us from removing you in November."
Jen Rice, a journalist covering Texas politics, posted video of the exchange on Bluesky, where it circulated widely Tuesday evening.
Commissioners did not vote until after 5 p.m., the Tribune reported. Attendees still in the room began chanting "shame" the moment it passed.
O'Hare had already ordered sheriff's deputies to remove three attendees earlier in the day, according to the Tribune. A sheriff's office spokesperson told the Fort Worth Report that no arrests were made.
The list of commissioners-approved sites removes 92 Election Day sites in a county where more than 1.3 million people are registered to vote, the Tribune reported. Tarrant County has been a Republican stronghold for decades, but Democrats have narrowly carried the top of the statewide ballot there in recent elections, according to the Tribune.
Democratic state Sen. Taylor Rehmet then won a Tarrant County seat outright in a January special election runoff, beating Republican Leigh Wambsganss 57% to 43% in a district President Donald Trump had carried by 17 points, CNN reported.
Democratic Commissioner Alisa Simmons rejected the argument that the cuts were about money, according to the Tribune.
"It's not about cost. This is about power. This is very political. This is campaigning from the dais," Simmons said, the Tribune reported.
Cynnamon Hall told commissioners the cuts fall hardest on Black and brown neighborhoods, including Fort Worth's 76104 ZIP code, which is left without a single site, the Tribune reported.
"If you accept this, you're basically saying that our votes don't matter," Hall said, according to the Tribune.
Commissioners were supposed to settle the list in early August but tabled it after agreeing Ludwig's first proposal, with 176 sites, cut too deeply, the Tribune reported. One speaker at that meeting, former Democratic state Rep. Lon Burnam, was arrested and carried out by his ankles and wrists.
Simmons appeared Sunday with state Rep. James Talarico, an Austin Democrat running for U.S. Senate, outside a building that had been a polling place, according to Let's Address Texas.
"The most powerful people in this country don't want us to be able to vote easily," Talarico said, the outlet reported.
Simmons is on the November ballot herself, running against O'Hare for county judge, the Tribune reported.
Election Day is Nov. 3, and early voting runs Oct. 19-30, the Tribune reported. The deadline to register to vote is Oct. 5.
Happening now in TX: Voters in battleground Tarrant County are telling GOP local officials what they think of their plan to cut 30% of voting locations this year“Nothing you can do can stop us from removing you in November”
[image or embed]
— Jen Rice (@jenrice.bsky.social) September 1, 2026 at 4:03 PM
