Photo by Maricela Gonzales<\/a><\/p>\nThe League of Women Voters of Tarrant County has asked UTA to use the MavMover shuttle buses to help students reach nearby polling locations during Nov. 3 midterm election voting.<\/p>\n
Larry Cummings, UTA parking communications manager, said in a Microsoft Teams message that Parking and Transportation Services has supported similar requests with sponsorship from Student Government in the past.<\/p>\n
Student Body President Andres Morales confirmed in a Teams message that they have been looking into the issue. Further details have not been shared.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 1, Tarrant County Commissioners approved a list of early and Election Day voting sites. This reduced the number of sites in Arlington from 59 to 37 for Election Day and from seven to six for early voting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Removing the Maverick Activities Center for early and Election Day voting was part of the commissioners\u2019 decision. The nearest polling place to campus is now the Tarrant County Sub-Courthouse.<\/p>\n
Janet Mattern, president of the league, reached out to university officials about the buses\u2019 potential deployment.<\/p>\n
The green route, she said, travels to Walmart and passes by a voting site in the evening, and she saw that as an opportunity for students to get to the polls.<\/p>\n
Although the distance to the sub-courthouse is three minutes by car, when considering the distance on foot, Mattern said getting to the polls tends to be more time-consuming.<\/p>\n
That time can increase depending on where students are on campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can get buses that can go to the sub-courthouse, it\u2019ll make it a little bit easier,\u201d Mattern said.<\/p>\n
The city also typically offers rides to early and Election Day voting locations through its Arlington On-Demand rideshare service.<\/p>\n
This is not the first time the university has been asked to provide transportation to the polls.<\/p>\n
In 2019, regulations in House Bill 1888 barred UTA from using the MAC as a voting location during the 2019 election, according to previous Shorthorn reporting. The measure required temporary polling locations to stay open for at least eight hours a day and remain in one location for the duration of the 12- day early voting cycle.<\/p>\n
Student Government provided MavMovers to early voting locations during the Nov. 5, 2019, Tarrant County general and special elections.<\/p>\n
The shuttle buses took students from The Commons to the Tarrant County Sub-Courthouse. The buses were available from noon to 6 p.m. and ran continuously, according to previous Shorthorn reporting.<\/p>\n
In 2020, however, the Tarrant County elections administration found sufficient funds to keep the MAC as an early voting location for the entirety of the early voting cycle, according to previous Shorthorn reporting.<\/p>\n
Devan Allen, then a Tarrant County commissioner, cited UTA\u2019s growing enrollment as the reason for the voting location. The university had around 42,733 students enrolled during the fall 2020 semester, according to previous Shorthorn reporting. The university now has 42,787 students enrolled, according to enrollment data.<\/p>\n
According to previous Shorthorn reporting, UTA was first used as an early voting site in 2008. Students cast their ballots in the University Center Palo Duro Lounge.<\/p>\n
The site was moved to the MAC in the early 2010s and was used as a polling location during the 2020 primary elections, the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential election.<\/p>\n
During an August 2025 commissioners court meeting, UTA was cut as an early or Election Day voting site. Clinton Ludwig, Tarrant County elections administrator, cited state legislation requirements as the reason for UTA\u2019s exclusion.<\/p>\n
During the 2025 meeting, Ludwig said UTA and Tarrant County College Southeast did not have separate, locked rooms for securing election materials, which is required for polling locations.<\/p>\n
Since that vote, UTA has remained off the list of approved voting sites, despite Ludwig stating during the Sept. 1 commissioners court meeting that university officials would be willing to bring the site back and comply with state legislation.<\/p>\n
With the newly approved list decided during the September commissioners meeting, the average distance between early voting sites in Arlington is roughly 2.85 miles. For Election Day, the average distance between sites is 1.56 miles.<\/p>\n
Ludwig said the only locations not added to the list from the 2024 and 2022 elections that met state compliance were Tarrant County College Northeast and South and UTA.Ludwig said UTA is less than a mile from the Tarrant County Sub-Courthouse.<\/p>\n
During the 2024 presidential election, around 7,700 people out of the almost 1.3 million registered voters in Tarrant County cast their ballots at the MAC during early voting, according to unofficial county data.<\/p>\n
Despite the reduction of polling sites in 2025, the county saw one of its largest recorded voting turnouts for an odd-year election in over a decade during the Nov. 4 constitutional amendment election, according to previous Shorthorn reporting.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know good and well people are coming out to vote,\u201d Precinct 2 Commissioner Alisa Simmons said during the September meeting. \u201cWhy on Earth would this body consider cutting back on polling places?\u201d<\/p>\n
County Judge Tim O\u2019Hare said during the meeting that in the most recent general election, multiple polling locations were empty. In past meetings, low voter turnout and cost-saving measures were cited as reasons for voting site cuts.<\/p>\n
Mattern said that regardless of how people vote, access to the polls must be provided.<\/p>\n
During this election, people will vote on various federal, state and local positions, including county commissioners, governor and U.S. House of Representatives and Senate seats.<\/p>\n
A list of election day sites can be found on the county\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot predict how a student will vote, but the whole purpose is to make sure every student is able to vote,\u201d Mattern said.<\/p>\n
@tay._.sansom<\/p>\n
news-editor.shorthorn@uta.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Election campaign signs are lined up Sept. 27 on Abram Street in Arlington. The 2026 midterm election is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[992,409,116,118,117,223],"class_list":["post-452989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-city","tag-election","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452989","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=452989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6ab9b0a32ae4c.image.jpg\")
<\/p>\n