Nathan Hunsinger
Audio By Carbonatix
You may by now already know that there are major differences between early voting and Election Day voting in the March 3 Dallas County primaries this year. If you don’t already know, please keep reading so you can save yourself some frustration at the polls on Tuesday.
Unlike previous years, Dallas County is conducting separate Republican and Democratic primary elections on March 3. The wish for separate elections, made by the Dallas County Republican Party, triggered a series of changes that narrowed voter options for polling places to a single spot.
The long and the short of it is this: The precinct you are registered in is where you must cast your vote on March 3. You don’t currently live or work near that precinct? Tough luck.
According to Fox 4, there are 280 voting locations for Democrats and 243 for Republicans, but again, you can only go to the precinct location specified on your voter registration card. It wasn’t this way for those who participated in early voting in February, when voters could cast ballots at any location in their county. At least there are easy ways to find out where you need to go.
Why the change, you ask? Well, politics, of course.
In October, the Dallas County Republican Party announced its intention to hand-count its primary ballots. At the time, county party Chairman Allen West cited a lack of trust in the voting machines and some of the problems the county had experienced with them in the past as the reason for the significant switch. It’s worth remembering that President Donald Trump has continued to consistently refer to the 2020 presidential election as stolen, thanks in part to electronic voting machines.
But before the end of the year, West and his party announced they would drop plans to hand-count primary ballots, citing concerns about the financial, staffing and training requirements for manual counting. Still, the county GOP opted to move forward with conducting “a precinct-based, community, separate Election Day electoral process.” Williamson County, north of Austin, will also hold precinct-specific elections Tuesday.
Some conservative Texas lawmakers have sought to close primaries, meaning voters can vote only in the primary of the party they are affiliated with, but that has yet to gain much traction in the Legislature. To be clear, should a primary election result in a runoff election, only people who either voted in the primary for that party or did not vote in the primary at all can vote in a given runoff election.
As one might guess, the Democratic Party isn’t thrilled about the way in which Dallas and Williamson County Republicans have made it more difficult to vote this week.
“It is important to stress that vote centers were conceived by Republicans and, now, they are rolling their own conceptions back,” Amanda Lugo, voter protection director for the Texas Democratic Party, said in a statement. “We are urging voters in Dallas and Williamson Counties to make a voting plan. Please vote early at a countywide vote center if you can, or confirm your precinct number and assigned precinct polling places if you plan on voting on Tuesday”.
