Lawmakers, a Fort Worth council member and Latino advocacy groups used the last day of voter registration on Monday to press Latino residents in Tarrant County to take part in the Nov. 3 midterm election.
Dozens of people, including residents, advocacy group members and candidates for county offices, met Monday afternoon at Marine Park in Fort Worth to talk about voting rights and who is eligible to vote, then reconvened at Café Azul, a coffee shop, the Fort Worth Report reported. Fort Worth City Council member Carlos Flores, LULAC national president Roman Palomares and state Reps. Nicole Collier and Ana-Maria Ramos were among those attending, along with members of UnidosUS and Mi Familia Vota.
Ramos told the crowd to confirm they are registered and to vote early. She tied her appeal to household costs such as gas and medical care. "But there is only so much that we all can do," she said. "What we can do together is change all of this from the top to the bottom, and the way it's done is with your vote."
Registration backlog
The gathering came after the Texas Department of Public Safety disclosed that thousands of September voter applications had been held up. The statewide backlog topped 200,000 applications, roughly 74,000 of them from Tarrant County. Clint Ludwig, the county's elections administrator, told the Fort Worth Report on Sept. 30 that at least 60,000 had been processed and that the rest were expected to be finished by that Friday.
