‘Gerrymandering’ More Blatant Republican Ploy: ‘Voting Desertification’ - 경향신문

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U.S. voter casting an early ballot in the midterms A voter in the United States casts an early ballot for the Nov. 3 midterm elections at a polling place set up inside the Elections and Voter Services building in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on the 18th (local time). Early voting began that day in some states, including Minnesota, Virginia, Idaho, and South Dakota. AP Yonhap News

Tarrant County, Texas, has decided to eliminate one-third of its polling places for the midterm elections to be held on Nov. 3 (local time). The County Commissioners Court, where Republicans hold a 32 majority, passed a plan on the 1st to reduce polling places from 316 to 224, citing “cost savings.”

Polling places disappeared most densely in areas with higher proportions of people of color and higher poverty rates. Some areas have become complete “voting deserts” with no polling places at all. This makes voting even harder for residents without cars and for low-income workers who have little time to spare because of their livelihoods.

Local activists advocating voting rights, in an interview with this reporter on the 8th, suspected that Republicanswho had previously pushed redistricting (gerrymandering) to create a favorable electoral mapare now testing a new tactic of “polling place cuts.”

Tarrant County sided with Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election by a margin of 1,826 votes. Although in the 2024 presidential race it handed a victory back to Republican candidate Donald Trump by 42,000 votes, the gap between Republicans and Democrats has narrowed significantly compared to a decade ago. Notably, more than 188,400 people participated in the Democratic primary held in Tarrant County last March, far surpassing the roughly 145,000 who voted in the Republican primary. This indicates higher primary enthusiasm among Democrats and suggests the possibility of higher general-election turnout among Democratic supporters.

Katherine Godbey, co-founder and board chair of the civic group Justice Network, criticized the move, saying, “Cost savings are a false pretext,” and, “Republicans, who feel a sense of crisis, are using tricks to lower turnout among voters who lean Democratic.”

Tim O’Hare, the Republican chair of the Tarrant County Commissioners Court who led the decision, argued that the cuts mean “we will no longer wastefully place a polling site right across the street,” and that the sites are “fairly and rationally distributed.” In reality, however, polling places decreased much more sharply in ZIP code areas with higher poverty rates. Among the areas with the largest cuts are those with higher shares of people of color.

An analysis cross-referencing the lists of polling places published by the Tarrant County election authorities for 2022 and 2026 with the American Community Survey (ACS) poverty data shows that polling places in the top 25% highest-poverty areas fell from 89 to 51, a 42.7% decrease. In contrast, in the bottom 25% lowest-poverty areas, they fell from 70 to 67, only a 4.3% decrease.

The stark contrast is evident between ZIP code area A, which has Tarrant County’s highest poverty rate (30.1%), and area B, which has the lowest (1.5%). In area A, where Election Day polling places were cut from seven to threemore than halvedpeople of color make up 78.4% of the population, and 9.3% of households lack a car. By contrast, in area B, where only 1.9% of households lack a car, polling places increased from three to four.

Particularly striking is ZIP code area C: all three polling places that existed in the 2022 election have been eliminated, leaving no Election Day polling place at all. Area C’s poverty rate is 16.2%, and 6.4% of households lack a car. Even accounting for residents ineligible to vote, such as non-citizens, this suggests a substantial number of eligible voters may face serious transportation hurdles reaching a polling place.

For example, taking a house on Oakland Drive in area C as a reference point, in the November 2022 midterms it took two minutes on foot to reach a polling place. In this November’s midterms, however, it is about a 50-minute walk to a polling place in the neighboring ZIP code.

The polling place that had been on the University of Texas at Arlington campus has also been removed. Because Election Day is not a federal holiday in the U.S., when on-campus polling places disappear, students must use free periods to travel off campus to vote. “I live in a dorm and don’t have a car. Voting is going to become very cumbersome,” said Lisbet, whom we met in front of a dormitory on the 10th. Alexandria, a master’s student in architecture, added, “They always say young people should vote, so how does it make sense to deliberately remove polling places that used to be on campus?”

Godbey of the Justice Network, which has been campaigning against the cuts, said in a video interview on the 8th, “The targeted elimination of polling places in low-income and majority-minority neighborhoods is blatant racism,” adding, “Some people now have to cross a highway to get to the nearest alternative polling place. In some cases, access has become impossible without a car.”

Michael Bell, a Black pastor who has spoken out on civil rights issues such as race, education, and police reform, noted in an interview the same day, “For low-income people of color, the cuts have a direct impact on time and money.” He said, “These neighborhoods lack an economic base, so many people work outside their area. Previously they could stop by to vote on the way home from work, and if the local school was a polling place, they could vote while picking up their kids. Now, in some cases, they have to bring the kids home first and then go out again to find a polling place, which may mean paying extra for after-school care.”

“Tarrant County is a leading indicator for Texas and the Republican Party,” Bell said. “If the cuts prove effective at suppressing turnout, Republicans could expand this to other areas to tilt the electoral landscape in their favor.” Godbey added that gerrymandering was first seriously discussed in Tarrant County before spreading to other parts of Texas.

Indeed, Steve Bannon, a MAGA (Make America Great Again) influencer, has long called Tarrant County a strategic stronghold that will determine the course of conservative politics in Texas and nationally. On his podcast last November, he said, “As Tarrant goes, so goes Texas; as Texas goes, so goes the nation.”

Godbey expressed concern not only about the cuts to polling places but also about various Trump administration measures to restrict voting rights,such as the Save America Act that President Trump is pressing Congress to pass. The bill would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote; because a driver license does not establish citizenship, applicants would have to obtain additional documents through a complicated process. This is especially difficult for low-income and rural residents. Bell noted, “Married women may have changed surnames, creating mismatches between their current legal name and the one on their birth certificate,” adding, “Once they start demanding citizenship-related documents, it will be a nightmare.”

Continued attacks on the election system and attempts to restrict voting rights by the Trump administration and Republicans are fueling fears that the federal government may intervene in this midterm election. Reuters reported that many state governments and election authorities have taken unusual precautionary steps in case of emergencies. Some jurisdictions have installed bulletproof glass and surveillance cameras in election offices, and some have even conducted drills premised on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents showing up at polling places.

“Trump’s ultimate goal is to make people distrust the election system itself,” Pastor Bell said. “Once people don’t trust it, they stop participating. They start thinking, ‘What’s the point of my vote?’”

“I took democracy for granted until I was seventy, and I now have a real sense of crisis that we could lose it,” Godbey said. “But the people are stronger than those in power. If everyone comes together, we can stop this.”

Civic groups in Tarrant County, including the Justice Network, plan to encourage voters to cast early ballots in response to the local government’s cuts to polling places and to provide transportation on Election Day for those who would otherwise struggle to reach a site.