Students at the University of Texas at Arlington on Wednesday protested Tarrant County’s decision to remove 92 polling sites this year as complaints over voter line wait times increase.
The students marched from the campus to the Tarrant County subcourthouse polling site, which had a wait time over 45 minutes, according to the county’s own website.
An organizer of the protest, Emeri Callaway, called the county’s move “voter suppression.”
“For too long, the young people have been silenced,” Callaway said. “We’re standing up against that because we do matter.”
The estimated time it will take voters to cast their ballots at the polling locations around UTA.
While there was a polling location at the Maverick Center at UTA for years, it was left off a list of approved polling sites the Tarrant County Commissioners Court approved this year.
Fort Worth residents sued the county’s elections administrator and Republican commissioners this month, but a judge upheld the list.
Tarrant County residents will now have 92 fewer polling locations on Election Day and three less during early voting.
Supporters of the move say a reduction in polling sites saves the county money.
Voter turnout in Tarrant County has been high so far. Over 50,000 people voted on the first day of early voting this week compared to about 29,000 in 2022.
Polling locations are open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 19-23, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Oct. 24, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 25 and next week Oct. 26-30, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Election Day is Nov. 3.
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org/2026/10/22/uta-students-protest-closed-voting-polls-as-wait-times-soar-in-several-tarrant-county-areas/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://fortworthreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=842869&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://fortworthreport.org/2026/10/22/uta-students-protest-closed-voting-polls-as-wait-times-soar-in-several-tarrant-county-areas/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/fortworthreport.org/p.js”></script>