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Ahead of the November midterm elections, Republican officials in the third most populous county of Texas have voted to slash the number of polling sites by nearly one-third. Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth, will have just 224 polling sites for 1.3 million voters. The change was approved in a party-line vote Tuesday, with all three of the county’s Republican commissioners voting in favor and the two Democrats opposing it. Civil rights groups including the ACLU and NAACP warn the changes will disproportionately affect voters of color.

“The eyes of the nation are on Tarrant County,” says Roderick Miles Jr., a Democratic Tarrant County commissioner, who calls the voting restriction a “modern-day poll tax.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: In a party-line vote, all three Republican commissioners in Tarrant County, Texas, have voted to slash the number of polling sites for November’s midterm elections by nearly a third, leaving 1.3 million voters with just 224 polling sites. Civil rights groups, including the ACLU and NAACP, warn the changes will disproportionately affect voters of color in Texas’s third-largest county, with majority-minority areas of Arlington and Fort Worth targeted.

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During a marathon 10-hour hearing on Tuesday, commissioners heard from dozens of citizens who opposed the reduction. Here are some of their voices.

GABE GONZALEZ: My name is Gabe Gonzalez. … The population of the city has increased, and voting has increased. You saw that in May. You do not need to make poll workers’ lives harder by cutting the locations and bottlenecking our democracy. CATHERINE WOODS: Catherine Woods. How is our budget unable to accommodate our voting needs in Tarrant County? … Did you not have enough money in the budget after the hand recount that you ordered in the 2024 election, the one that confirmed the original result? Or was that money spent performatively? Did you not have enough money in the budget for the redistricting? … This proposal is hypocritical. It is irresponsible. It is anti-democratic. It is anti-American. LINDA NORTHERN: I’m Linda Northern. The right to vote is the bedrock of our democracy. Reducing the number of polling places does not uphold this right. … This will make it harder for Brown, Black and low-income voters, who have the same right to vote as you do. This is wrong.

GABE GONZALEZ: My name is Gabe Gonzalez. … The population of the city has increased, and voting has increased. You saw that in May. You do not need to make poll workers’ lives harder by cutting the locations and bottlenecking our democracy.

CATHERINE WOODS: Catherine Woods. How is our budget unable to accommodate our voting needs in Tarrant County? … Did you not have enough money in the budget after the hand recount that you ordered in the 2024 election, the one that confirmed the original result? Or was that money spent performatively? Did you not have enough money in the budget for the redistricting? … This proposal is hypocritical. It is irresponsible. It is anti-democratic. It is anti-American.

LINDA NORTHERN: I’m Linda Northern. The right to vote is the bedrock of our democracy. Reducing the number of polling places does not uphold this right. … This will make it harder for Brown, Black and low-income voters, who have the same right to vote as you do. This is wrong.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: The two Democratic commissioners on the five-person board also spoke out forcefully against slashing the number of polling sites. This is Democratic Commissioner Roderick Miles Jr.

RODERICK MILES JR.: What I hold in my hand — and I want y’all to get this — is my wife’s great-grandmother’s poll tax receipt. Get a good look at it.........

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