Some candidates running for election in Tarrant County have called for extended hours at early voting sites as some voters wait hours in line.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Democrats Kevin Burge and Nathan Smith have called for the county to extend early voting hours after two-hour waits on Monday, the first day of early voting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Tarrant County did not respond to an emailed request for interview with the elections department\u00a0sent Wednesday.\u00a0Clint Ludwig, the elections in administrator in Tarrant County, did not return a Thursday morning phone call.<\/p>\n
Burge, who is running for U.S. House District 24, said voters showed up for the election and it\u2019s time for the county to show up for voters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey did their part,\u201d Burge said in the release. \u201cThe county has the ability to keep polls open later, and it should.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the joint release, the candidates asked county officials to keep early voting locations open until 8 p.m. next week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI want everyone to have their voices heard at the ballot box,\u201d Smith, who is seeking voter support in a bid for District Clerk in Tarrant County, said in the release. \u201cThis is a reasonable ask, especially because we have fewer Election Day sites.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Republican Tarrant County commissioners voted to cut nearly 100 sites from the list of election day\u00a0voting locations and dropped three for early voting. The court in September\u00a0voted 3-2 along party lines to cut the locations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During a phone call Wednesday evening with KERA News, Burge said the specific voting locations that were cut is concerning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone who is a voter, it is impacting them and we\u2019re seeing this wave election in the number of people who are coming out,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to justify a reduction of polls in an environment like this. To me, it seems like something more nefarious is going on.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was concerned that the locations chosen would disproportionately impact\u00a0Black and brown voters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ludwig,\u00a0who proposed the cuts, told the commissioners ahead of the vote that several of the voting sites used in the 2022 midterms were unavailable, unwilling or unable to be used this year due to statutory requirements.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m confident that what is proposed is going to give everybody that wants to vote the opportunity to vote,\u201d Ludwig said in September.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was the second time Ludwig brought a proposal for the number and locations of voting sites for the 2026 midterms. The court was scheduled to finalize voting sites in early August but agreed unanimously that Ludwig\u2019s first proposal included too few sites.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That first proposal saw the county operate 42 early voting sites and 176 election day polling locations. The decision was tabled until that September meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPersonally, I find it all very disgraceful,\u201d Smith told KERA in a Wednesday evening phone call. \u201cBecause this is a completely predictable outcome from policy decisions that were made to cut some of the voting sites and really just to not expand the number of early voting sites in a rapidly growing county.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brody Mulligan, a spokesperson representing\u00a0both Burge and Smith in the news release, told KERA News that fewer voting locations aren\u2019t the only problem.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a grand conspiracy to stop people from voting, it\u2019s just a big election,\u201d Mulligan said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mulligan\u00a0said the Burge and Smith campaigns have seen some trends in problems\u00a0at voting sites.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the Como Community Center, a polling location in one of Fort Worth\u2019s historically Black neighborhoods, Mulligan said voters have experienced problems that seem to start around opening at 8 a.m. and last until about 10 a.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He told KERA there are also concerns for health and safety of voters, especially those who are elderly or have disabilities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mulligan also said the election has seen higher turnout than usual for a midterm election and that the ballot is longer and takes more time to fill out. \u00a0<\/p>\n
And he said a push by both Republican and Democratic candidates urging folks to cast ballots in early voting may contribute, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDo fewer locations have an effect? Absolutely,\u201d he told KERA. \u201cWe also think it\u2019s in part voters heading that message to come early. Take advantage of early voting, don\u2019t wait until it\u2019s too late.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
An Aug. 4 meeting to discuss cuts to polling sites, a seven-hour marathon of public speakers and debate, saw at least two public speakers arrested, according to KERA media partner Fort Worth Report. One was arrested and carried out by his wrists and ankles. Another left willingly and was arrested a week later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dozens of speakers signed up to address the court during the Aug. 4 meeting, most of them to ask the county not to cut polling locations and instead increase sites to accommodate for the county\u2019s growing population.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2022, during the last midterm election, Tarrant County had 2.16 million residents\u00a0and 50 early voting locations, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Tarrant County.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
This year, the Census Bureau estimates Tarrant County\u2019s population at 2.24 million people, and Tarrant County has 47 early voting locations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2022, the county had 316 election day voting sites. This year, it will have 224.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whether the county\u2019s decision to offer three fewer locations for early voting has had an effect is unclear, but Mulligan suspects the decision to offer 92 fewer locations on election day has prompted more interest in casting ballots early.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people see and know that so many locations are being cut on election day, they\u2019re very eager to vote early because they want to make sure their votes are counted,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Smith agreed that the cut in voting locations may be driving more people to cast early ballots. He encouraged anybody who hasn\u2019t voted yet to do so before early voting ends, in part to avoid election day confusion and ensure things like technical issues don\u2019t prevent them from casting a ballot.<\/p>\n
He said Wednesday evening that the county needs to take any steps legally available to make it easier for voters to make their voices heard through the ballot box.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe concern that I have is just that folks, especially working class folks who might have a hard time getting time off work from a shift or whatever during that 8 to 5 window, especially the first week, that they\u2019re going to get up there and they\u2019re going to have a very narrow window to vote in and they are going to see a line snaking around the building and they are not going to be able vote,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThat is an absolutely unacceptable outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story has been updated to indicate Nathan Smith is running for Tarrant County District Clerk.<\/p>\n
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/10\/22\/a-reasonable-ask-2-tarrant-candidates-call-for-extended-early-voting-times-after-hours-long-lines\/”>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;”><\/p>\n
<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/?republication-pixel=true&post=843165&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/10\/22\/a-reasonable-ask-2-tarrant-candidates-call-for-extended-early-voting-times-after-hours-long-lines\/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } <\/script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/fortworthreport.org\/p.js”><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by James Hartley | KERA News, Fort Worth Report October 22, 2026 Some candidates running for election in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,30245],"class_list":["post-474950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-kera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474950","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=474950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}