Special meeting on Tarrant County voting sites stirs activists to issue calls to action

A Tarrant County commissioners meeting on early voting sites and building access for voter registration volunteers has prompted calls to action from both sides of the debate.

County Judge Tim O’Hare called the meeting after a tumultuous Commissioners Court session on Sept. 4 in which he voted to reject a list of early voting sites for the general election after expressing disapproval of the number of sites on college campuses.

O’Hare’s Democratic colleagues will be unable 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 an event by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Simmons’ office is working with students at UT Arlington to help organize a press conference on the campus to express their discontent with the decisions, according to Nathan Smith, Simmons’ community outreach coordinator.

“Commissioner Simmons received lots of calls from students and student organizations asking if she can speak at a press conference tomorrow,” Smith said.

The commissioner is already in the nation’s capital for the event, and will not be able to attend the press conference, Smith said, but “she directed her staff to work with student groups to assist in making their voices heard.”

A representative from the university declined to comment until after the press conference, scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday on West Lawn at the Maverick Activities Center.

A separate press conference was initially planned for the same time outside of the Tarrant County Administration Building in downtown Fort Worth, but organizers ended up combining the two events.

Simmons on Monday accused O’Hare of “clearly targeting race and ethnicity” by attempting to remove UT Arlington and other majority-minority college campuses from the list of early voting sites.

Just 22% of UT Arlington’s more than 41,000 students are white. Hispanic students make up 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 the items on Thursday’s agenda came from the head of the True Texas Project, Julie McCarty.

She referenced a vote from last week’s session that appeared to upset O’Hare, who questioned Precinct 3 Commissioner Gary Fickes when he voted to approve an amendment to the county’s facilities use policy allowing voter registration volunteers to set up inside county buildings.

“You’re a yes on this, Gary?” he said before the voting boards revealed the votes to the few attendees remaining after a lengthy executive session. “You’re voting for the amendment that she is proposing to make deputy registrars — where they just get to come in?”

Fickes confirmed he intended to vote in favor of the amendment both to O’Hare and to reporters after the meeting.

“Recently County Commissioner Gary Fickes made an incorrect vote at a commissioner’s court meeting, and a bad measure passed,” McCarty said in an email sent out Monday evening. “Mistakes happen, and he wants to correct it, which we fully support.”

The email goes on to urge True Texas Project supporters to contact O’Hare, Fickes and Precinct 4 Commissioner Manny Ramirez on social media to request that they reverse the amendment and vote for a list of early voting sites that does not include the UT Arlington campus.

McCarty did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Her email also called for “no” votes on items to consider requests from three voter registration organizations to return inside county buildings where they registered voters before the rule change that booted them out onto sidewalks in August.

Those organizations — Jolt Initiative, Battleground Texas and Texas Freedom Network — have not responded to multiple requests for comment.

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