After the chaotic March primaries in Dallas County, those of us who live here can breathe a sigh of relief. For the primary runoffs on May 26, the county will abandon precinct-based voting and go back to countywide polling places, meaning you can vote wherever it’s most convenient for you.
That’s because the local Democratic and Republican parties have agreed to go back to joint elections for the runoffs, according to news reports. It was the Dallas County GOP that threw a wrench into the primaries in the first place by insisting on precinct-based voting for Republicans.
But you can’t have only Republicans doing precinct-based voting. Per state law, if one party does it, then the other has to as well.
And that’s how we ended up with chaos on March 3: Voter after voter showed up at their usual polling place but had to be turned around because it wasn’t their assigned voting location. The confusion was such that lines formed at some Dallas County polls close to the 7 p.m. deadline. County officials extended Democratic voting hours after a local judge granted an emergency request from party officials, but those after-hours ballots were ultimately not counted.
Opinion
We knew from our colleagues’ reporting on election day that hundreds, at least, had been turned away and referred to another polling place. Now we have hard numbers. Dallas County commissioners were told last week that at least 12,600 people had been sent text messages redirecting them to a new location.
That whopping number by itself is an undercount because some people who were redirected opted not to receive text messages.
After the primaries, Dallas County GOP Chair Allen West issued a statement dripping with condescension: “Yesterday Republican voters in Dallas County evidenced their ability to adapt and overcome proving that precinct level voting can be accomplished on primary Election Day. It’s apparent that Democrats struggled with grasping basic civics and their usual attempt at lawfare backfired.”
Yet an analysis of county data by the news outlet Votebeat found that at least 7.7% of the voters seeking to participate in the Democratic primary and 6.4% of voters seeking to cast ballots in the Republican primary went to the wrong voting site. West didn’t respond to Votebeat’s findings.
We suspect West gave up on precinct-based voting because his stunt risked confusing Republican voters gearing up for the red-hot runoff for U.S. Senate between incumbent John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
As we see it, West was willing to undercut Democrats at the expense of voters in his own party. Dallas County Republicans deserve, and should demand, better leadership.
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