One week remains until early voting begins for the Texas primary, and Dallas County is not fully ready.
While universal early voting locations are largely set, county elections officials are still working with the Democratic and Republican parties to finalize their March 3 polling sites.
That’s when all voters will have to cast ballots at assigned neighborhood precincts for the first time in nearly a decade, a change pushed last year by the GOP.
Elections Administrator Paul Adams said Monday that the parties’ delay in providing the sites has strained the county’s overall preparations while officials rush to inform voters about late-breaking changes.
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“This is creating a very difficult logistical problem for our office right now,” Adams said, because elections officials are trying to ”figure out how exactly do we continue to prepare for this election when it appears to be a moving target of these different polling locations.”
After finalizing about 70 early voting sites last month, the Dallas County Commissioners Court will vote Thursday to swap out a handful of locations where voters can cast early ballots regardless of their address beginning Feb. 17.
During a Commissioners Court committee discussion Monday, officials fretted over the switch to precinct-based voting on March 3.
While the parties are holding separate primaries – selecting nominees for federal, state and local offices – they are contracting with the county to run them. Adams told both parties he needed their polling locations finalized by Jan. 16.
He said the Democratic Party submitted its list late and Republicans were revising their sites as recently as Friday.
About 12 original locations chosen by the parties declined to participate, and Adams said he was still working Monday to confirm whether the replacements the parties identified were available.
Commissioner Theresa Daniel said the situation should not have reached this point.
“We shouldn’t be here,” Daniel said.
Timeline crunch
County Democratic Party Chair Kardal Coleman said sites falling through are typical in elections. But the GOP’s decision to hold separate primaries has forced the parties to manage the changes in a condensed timeline, and he fears voter disenfranchisement will result.
“This isn’t confusion – it’s voter suppression,” Coleman said in a statement to The Dallas Morning News. “Republicans made deliberate choices that created chaos close to Election Day because confusion keeps people from voting.”
Allen West, chair of the county Republican Party, previously said he pushed for precinct-based voting on election day because it “reduces the opportunity for fraudulent activity.”
“We’re doing our best to close the loop,” on March 3 precincts, he said Monday. “Even the early voting locations were being changed until the last minute.”
In previous joint primaries, voters of both parties shared election machines at the same county-chosen voting sites that were universal as in during early voting.
Because of the separate election, some March 3 precincts will have shared polling sites where voters of each party will use different equipment and be guided by separate election workers.
In other precincts, Democrats and Republicans will have to report to different polling locations on election day, even if they are neighbors or family in the same household but belong to different parties.
Outreach effort
Last month the Commissioners Court allocated $1 million to fund a voter education campaign to alert residents to the changes through mailers, social media and other outreach.
Adams said his office will begin delivering voting equipment to early voting locations on Tuesday and to March 3 polling sites soon after.
He is predicting higher-than-normal voter turnout.
“I anticipate there’s going to be a very, very large turnout at the end of early vote when voters start hearing about different places, not knowing exactly where to go,” Adams said.
His office has ordered more ballots “to make sure we don’t run out,” and has looked at renting more equipment from its vendor to prepare for the overflow.
Primary voting sites in flux
The problem: Dallas County officials say the March 3 primary day polling locations remain unresolved, and that could confuse voters and strain preparations.
Why now: The parties have not finalized March 3 polling sites on the county’s timeline.
What’s next: The county is swapping some early voting sites, finalizing election day locations with both parties and ramping up a $1 million voter education effort.