Hundreds of voters were turned away from Dallas County polls Tuesday when they arrived at typically universal voting sites but were rerouted to their assigned polling place due to a switch prompted by the county Republican Party.
The GOP’s decision to hold a separate primary from Democrats this year required precinct-based voting on election day, a change from the countywide voting system in place since 2019 that allowed residents to vote at any center regardless of their address.
The switch surprised and frustrated residents who stopped to vote during their work dayor between errands only to be redirected elsewhere — an outcome predicted by county officials and voting rights activists who feared the GOP’s arrangement would disenfranchise voters.
“They ought to be making it easier for people to vote, not harder,” said Nancy Stacy, 73, after being turned away from Royal Lane Baptist Church, where she has voted for years. She was directed to a recreation center nearly 2 miles north.
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County officials deployed trained navigators to the busiest sites with iPads loaded with voter registrations to help redirect people to their correct polling locations.
Still, confusion persisted throughout the day and the Democratic Party petitioned a judge to extend voting by two hours through 9 p.m. After Judge Staci Williams granted the motion, the elections department extended hours for the 279 Democratic locations only.
“This is not just disenfranchising Democratic voters, this is disenfranchising everyone and this is a problem that we didn’t need,” Democratic Party chair Kardal Coleman said early Tuesday. “Now we’re seeing chaos ensue on election day.”
The local problem was compounded because the Secretary of State’s votetexas.gov website was not updated with Dallas County’s precinct maps changed in December after the state redistricting, according to county Democratic party executive director Brenda Allen.
Some voters searching for their polling place on the state’s website were provided with the wrong location. By Tuesday afternoon, the state website was directing voters to use Dallas County’s search tool instead.
Estelle Voisin arrived at University Park United Methodist Church before work at 8:30 a.m. where a navigator directed her to a school 10 minutes away.
“They’re making it more difficult for us,” said Voisin, a Democrat. “They’re eroding every single right that makes America America and one of those is voting.”
Shannon Fitzgerald, a navigator at the church, said she had to redirect 48 people to different polling sites within just the first two hours of the polls being open. Fitzgerald said one was a woman who stopped to cast a ballot on her way to the airport but had to give up her vote because she didn’t have time to make a second detour before her flight.
At Oak Lawn Branch Library, more than 70 voters had to be redirected to other polls by 9:30 a.m., more than the number able to cast a ballot on site by that time, said David Fisher, the site’s Democratic election judge.
One of those was Keith Idell, 77, a Republican who is used to voting at the Oak Lawn library but was instructed by navigators in green shirts that he had to head 1 mile away to Esperanza Medrano Elementary School.
At first, Idell thought about giving up: “Why do I have to travel around the city just to find someplace else to vote, screw it,” he said.
But Idell said he values voting as a way to “get the right people representing us in government,” so the retiree headed to the elementary school to try again.
More than 200 Republican precinct chairs voted in September to hold separate primaries this year. Republican Party chair Allen West declined to comment Tuesday on the confusion unfolding on election day. He previously said precinct-based voting “reduces the opportunity for fraudulent activity,” although research shows voter fraud is exceedingly rare in the U.S.
Democratic leaders tried to avoid this outcome by pushing for a joint primary.
But state law only allows countywide voting on election day if both parties agree, leaving all voters affected by the Republicans’ decision.
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett and state Rep. James Talarico, both Democrats running for U.S. Senate, released statements raising concerns about voters being turned away in Dallas and Williamson counties, which also converted to precincts for election day.
At a Tuesday evening news conference in front of the African American Museum at Fair Park in Dallas, Crockett outlined a range of concerns, from voters being turned away from voting locations, to county websites crashing to more working voting machines for Republicans than Democrats.
“Listen, this may be a very close election,” Crockett said. “And it may hinge on who was allowed to vote or who wasn’t allowed to vote in Dallas County. But I’m here to say, regardless of whether it’s close or not: This is wrong.”
The separate primaries also require different check-in tables, workers and voting machines for each party within shared locations. Red and blue arrows direct voters to opposite sides of the room inside the polls, meaning voters accustomed to casting a ballot with privacy have to publicly announce their affiliation.
The Commissioners Court in January allocated $1 million on a voter outreach campaign to push home mailers and advertisements alerting residents to the changes.
Still County Commissioner Andrew Sommerman estimated between 50% and 90% of voters who showed up to the 10 formerly universal vote centers with the highest turn out were rerouted to other sites.
He worried especially for working people who could carve out only small amounts of time in their day to cast a ballot, fearing some may not have continued to a second location after being turned away.
“If the goal of the Republican Party was to make voting more difficult, they have succeeded this day,” said Sommerman, a Democrat.
A little before 8 a.m., Glenda Amaya was in the Irving City Hall parking lot, getting back into her pickup to head to her third polling place of the morning. Amaya, 41, started at an Irving fire station, where a poll worker redirected her to another site on Story Road.
“But I was stubborn. I was like, ‘No, I can go to City Hall and go vote,’” she said. “But no, I can’t.”
The trips to two extra voting sites added about half an hour’s delay to her morning plans, Amaya said. But still, she was determined to cast a ballot.
“I feel like something’s got to change,” she said. “I know three, four years ago wasn’t great, but this is not great, either.”
At Samuell Grand Recreation Center in East Dallas, Gayla McGinnis, 66, appeared flustered as she exited the building and hurried back to her car around 9:30 a.m..
“This is where I vote every time,” she said, after being told inside that she was in the wrong place.
She was supposed to be at work but now had to head back toward home to vote. It had taken some time for poll workers to discern her correct voting location: Bayles Elementary School, a 10-minute drive from the recreation center.
The same thing happened to Myra Gee, 33. She had been hoping to be “in and out” to vote. Now she also had to commute to Bayles Elementary to cast her ballot.
Gee felt lucky that her remote job is flexible enough to give her that extra time. She knows that’s not the case for everyone.
“I can imagine for other voters who maybe don’t have that privilege, it can certainly be a challenge — or just discourage people in general,” Gee said. “They say, ‘Uh, I made it all the way over here. Now I have to go somewhere else. Just forget it.’”
Staff writers Silas Allen, Lauren Caruba and Jamie Landers contributed to this report.
Election Results
The Dallas Morning News will provide live election results this evening when the polls close at 7 p.m. Results will be updated throughout the evening for statewide races and Dallas, Collin, Denton, Ellis, Kaufman, Rockwall and Tarrant counties.
