\n Everett Jackson speaks outside Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas during an October 11 protest over its role as a polling location. | Image by Carlos Turcios\/The Dallas Express. <\/p>\n
Republican congressional candidate Everett Jackson led a small protest outside Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas on Sunday, arguing that the church should not serve as a polling location while its senior pastor, Democratic opponent Frederick Douglass Haynes III, runs for Congress.<\/p>\n
Dallas County\u2019s current early voting<\/a> and Election Day<\/a> lists include the church\u2019s banquet hall foyer at 2020 W. Wheatland Road. Jackson and Haynes are competing for Texas\u2019 30th Congressional District seat, which U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) currently holds.<\/p>\n Jackson called the arrangement \u201ca very obvious, a very obvious conflict of interest\u201d during an interview<\/a> with The Dallas Express at the October 11 protest.<\/p>\n \u201cHow can you be on the ballot and the church that you reside over is a polling site with your name on that ballot, ladies and gentlemen? I smell a rat. I smell a rat, and we have reached out to the Dallas Elections Board and whatnot, and we have got no resolution,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n Jackson urged election officials to stop using the church as a polling location while Haynes seeks federal office.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re either going to be on the poll, or you\u2019re going to be behind the pulpit. You cannot have both, but we cannot have his church as a polling location while he\u2019s on the ballot,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n \ud83d\udea8DALLAS, TEXAS\ud83d\udea8Black Republicans protested Friendship-West Baptist Church, a Dallas County polling site. Its pastor is running to replace Jasmine Crockett. The church previously displayed a giant BLM flag. One sign read, \u201cBlack People Wake Up!\u201d@Carlos__Turcios<\/a>@DallasExpress<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/EVChDGJyYu<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Carlos Turcios (@Carlos__Turcios) October 12, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n Earlier objections and official review<\/p>\n The Dallas County Republican Party previously urged<\/a> the county to remove Friendship-West as an Election Day voting site, citing an apparent conflict of interest, The Dallas Express reported in September.<\/p>\n In that report, Dallas GOP Chairman Monty Monta\u00f1ez said the party initially received word that county election officials, the district attorney and the Texas secretary of state had reviewed the arrangement during the primary and found no violation.<\/p>\n Monta\u00f1ez also said the secretary of state later reopened its review. DX had not independently confirmed that renewed review when it published the September report. The earlier story documented requests for comment to county and state election officials, the church and Haynes\u2019 campaign.<\/p>\n Jackson and other protesters also criticized the church\u2019s political activism and its previous display of a large Black Lives Matter flag. DX documented the flag\u2019s display in its earlier coverage.<\/p>\n Jayla Godbolt, who identified herself as a Republican write-in candidate for justice of the peace, joined the protest. The Dallas County Republican Party lists her<\/a> as a write-in candidate for justice of the peace, Precinct 1, Place 2.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were out here today protesting this blasphemous church of Friendship West,\u201d Godbolt told DX.<\/p>\n Haynes has led Friendship-West since 1983, according to the church\u2019s biography<\/a>. Early voting runs October 19-30<\/a> ahead of the November 3 general election.<\/p>\n