A meeting of Tarrant County commissioners on early voting locations and access to buildings for volunteers seeking to register voters has prompted calls for action from both sides of the debate.
County Judge Tim O’Hare called the meeting to order after a tumultuous session of the Commissioners Court on Sept. 4, in which he voted to reject a list of early voting locations for the general election. He had expressed disapproval of the number of locations on college campuses.
O’Hare’s Democratic colleagues will not be able to attend Thursday’s meeting. The court in August approved travel for Precinct 1 Commissioner Roy Brooks and Precinct 2 Commissioner Alisa Simmons to attend a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation event in Washington, D.C.
According to Nathan Smith, Simmons’ community outreach coordinator, Simmons’ office is working with students from the University of Texas at Arlington to host a press conference on campus to voice their displeasure with the decisions.
“Commissioner Simmons received many calls from students and student organizations asking if she could speak at a press conference tomorrow,” Smith said.
The commissioner is already in the nation’s capital for the event and cannot attend the press conference, Smith said, but “she has directed her staff to work with student groups to make their voices heard.”
A university representative declined to comment until after the news conference, which was scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday on the West Lawn at the Maverick Activities Center.
Initially, a separate press conference was planned for the same time outside the Tarrant County Administration Building in downtown Fort Worth, but organizers decided to combine the two events.
Simmons on Monday accused O’Hare of “clearly targeting race and ethnicity” by trying to remove UT Arlington and other minority-majority college campuses from the list of early voting locations.
Only 22% of UT Arlington’s more than 41,000 students are white. Hispanic students are the largest ethnic group at 32%, while 13% are black and 12% are Asian.
O’Hare did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Support for O’Hare and Thursday’s agenda items came from Julie McCarty, head of the True Texas Project.
She pointed to a vote during last week’s session that appeared to anger O’Hare. He questioned Precinct 3 Commissioner Gary Fickes as he voted to approve an amendment to the county’s facility use policy that would allow voter registration volunteers to set up shop in county buildings.
“You’re a yes to this, Gary?” he said before the polls announced the votes to the few remaining in attendance after a long closed session. “You’re voting for the amendment that they’re proposing to create deputy clerks — where they can just come in?”
Fickes confirmed he planned to vote for the amendment, both to O’Hare and to reporters after the meeting.
“Recently, County Commissioner Gary Fickes cast the wrong vote at a Commissioner’s Court meeting, and the wrong measure was passed,” McCarty said in an email sent Monday night. “Mistakes happen, and he wants to correct that, which we fully support.”
The email urges supporters of the True Texas Project to contact O’Hare, Fickes and Precinct 4 Commissioner Manny Ramirez via social media to request that they reverse the amendment and vote for a list of early voting locations that does not include the UT Arlington campus.
McCarty did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In her email, she also called for a “no” vote on requests from three voter registration organizations to return to the county buildings where they registered voters before the rule change that forced them off the curb in August.
These organizations — Jolt Initiative, Battleground Texas and Texas Freedom Network — did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
