{"id":404627,"date":"2026-08-12T15:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T15:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/404627\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T15:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T15:44:14","slug":"tarrant-county-judge-candidates-feud-over-polling-locations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/404627\/","title":{"rendered":"Tarrant County Judge candidates feud over polling locations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Tarrant County Commissioners Court members are throwing names across party lines over the recent proposition to cut 140 polling sites<\/a> for the 2026 midterm election.<\/p>\n

Last week, the five-person court unanimously agreed that the slash was far too large and sent Elections Administrator Clint Ludwig back to the drawing board<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Democrat Alisa Simmons, the Precinct 2 commissioner, has sent out at least five campaign emails in roughly a week blaming Republican County Judge Tim O\u2019Hare and the two other Republicans for the proposed cuts.<\/p>\n

All of the emails included a prompt to donate to Simmons\u2019s campaign or sign a petition in her favor. Simmons is running against O\u2019Hare for his seat as Tarrant County Judge in the Nov. 3 election.<\/p>\n

\u201cEither Tim O\u2019Hare KNEW a proposal to eliminate ALMOST HALF of our voting locations was moving forward and failed to put a stop to it,\u201d two of the emails said. \u201cOR, if you take him at his word, he did not know what was happening inside the very government he is supposed to lead. Neither explanation is acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simmons was also slated to speak at a rally prior to the Tuesday commissioners court meeting where speakers called the proposal \u201cvoter suppression.<\/a>\u201d She did not end up speaking and didn\u2019t give a reason why.<\/p>\n

In the meeting, when the full court discussed the proposal for the first time, O\u2019Hare was the first to say the number of Election Day voting sites was way too low. Simmons agreed but believed O\u2019Hare or one of the other Republicans prompted the slash.<\/p>\n

Every member on the court said they didn\u2019t know about the proposed cuts until it came out in the agenda the week before their public meeting.<\/p>\n

Ludwig said he did not run the proposal by any member of the court. In order to come up with the 176 sites, he said he apolitically looked at the map of election precincts and determined how many voting locations would be adequate with an increased turnout.<\/p>\n

In response to Simmons\u2019s claims, O\u2019Hare said Tuesday that Simmons is being completely dishonest.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is the most attention-starved, media-hungry person I\u2019ve ever met, and she uses the media to promote narratives that are repeatedly false and inaccurate, and unfortunately, very few people in the media will actually hold her accountable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Hare pointed to the fact that all the Republicans volunteered that they didn\u2019t direct Ludwig to make the change nor did they know anything about it beforehand. He said it wouldn\u2019t make logical sense for Republicans to reduce the number of polling locations in a Republican-majority county, essentially reducing access for their voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo either all of us are lying, and all of us are or incredibly dumb, or both, or the narrative that she\u2019s promoting, like most narratives she promotes, are simply not true,\u201d O\u2019Hare said. \u201cNow she\u2019s known to call out all kinds of things as issues and problems without ever offering a single solution. It\u2019s just smear, smear, smear, smear.\u201d<\/p>\n

The commissioners court will be presented with a new list of polling locations for the Nov. 3 election at their meeting on Sept. 1.<\/p>\n

Simmons did not respond to a request to comment from the Star-Telegram.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Hare said he is \u201c100% confident\u201d that everyone in Tarrant County will have a place to vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has never been easier to vote in the state of Texas than it is now, unless you are not a U.S. citizen,\u201d O\u2019Hare said. \u201cThen that is very difficult to do here in Texas, as it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was originally published August 11, 2026 at 7:35 PM.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Fort Worth Star-Telegram<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Rachel Royster<\/a><\/p>\n

Fort Worth Star-Telegram<\/p>\n

Rachel Royster is a news and government reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, specifically focused on Tarrant County. She joined the newsroom after interning at the Austin American-Statesman, the Waco Tribune-Herald and Capital Community News in DC. A Houston native and Baylor grad, Rachel enjoys traveling, reading and being outside. She welcomes any and all news tips to her email.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Tarrant County Commissioners Court members are throwing names across party lines over the recent proposition to cut…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151],"class_list":["post-404627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}