Four Fort Worth residents have gone to court to try to restore 92 Election Day polling places that Tarrant County dropped for the Nov. 3 midterm, arguing the cuts fall hardest on Black and Hispanic voters.
The suit, filed Friday morning in district court, was brought by City Council member Deborah Peoples, acting as a private citizen, joined by Maryellen Hicks, a former judge; Kathleen Hicks, a former council member; and Camille Rodriguez, who sits on the Fort Worth ISD board.
The defendants are County Judge Tim O'Hare, Republican commissioners Matt Krause and Manny Ramirez, and Clint Ludwig, the county's elections administrator, the Fort Worth Report reported.
What changed
The approved plan has 224 Election Day sites and 47 early voting sites. In the 2022 midterms, voters had 316 Election Day locations and 50 for early voting. Commissioners adopted Ludwig's list a month ago over the objections of the court's two Democrats, after hours of public testimony that largely opposed the reduction.
When the list was approved, Ludwig said his list put sites "where voters choose to vote," judging by turnout in earlier cycles, and at buildings that meet operational and disability-access requirements.
The plaintiffs' case
The petition claims the cuts were intentional and place an outsized burden on Black and Hispanic voters. It points to the 76103 ZIP code, which the suit says cast 892 votes in the 2022 midterms but has no Election Day site this year.
The plaintiffs also say 46 of the eliminated sites each drew more than 500 Election Day votes in 2022, and that the county's own site-selection method promised to keep locations above that mark.
