April 24, 2024
As I talk to people about the need for countywide Election Day voting in our county -- aka Voting Centers -- I've learned that most voters think this is a very good idea.
But some do disagree. Most of these folks have identified themselves to me as elected Republican officials, GOP precinct chairs or members of the party. And it does not seem to bother them that many members of their own party are being frustrated and angered by being redirected to a polling location that can be miles away.
It's only fair to tell you what these Voting Center opponents have to say. Their arguments are based on bad information or are not compelling enough to justifying harassing legally registered voters by sending them from one voting place to another on Election Day.
You can reach your own conclusion. If you agree with me, please visit votingcentersnow.org for more information, send two emails to the County Judge and your district commissioner and share the website on social media or by email.
• Voting Centers on primary Election Day every two years would force the Denton GOP to change the date and time of party meetings.
The Republican Party of Denton County holds precinct meetings (called "precinct conventions") to elect representatives to the county convention and conduct other local party business in each precinct at night after the polls close on Election Day during primary elections. These meetings, open only to Republicans, are held once every two years. They are sparsely attended.
County Commissioner Dianne Edmondson, a former Republican county chair, says having countywide voting on Election Day would require the party to change the dates for these meetings that are held once every two years. She says this would be very difficult to do. But we know that other counties have done it.
Other people say that people who wait until Election Day to vote are lazy, that they should be voting during Early Voting. Another view is that there are plenty of opportunities to vote during Early Voting, so it does not matter if some people don't get to vote on Election Day.
Republican parties in the other 93 counties that have voting centers on Election Day have changed the date and time of these meetings. In Tarrant County just south of us with nearly twice as many precincts as Denton, they are held two days after the primary. Party officials say this has made it easier for election workers to attend and improved turnout.
• People who can't figure out their Election Day polling place don't deserve to vote.
• People have plenty of chances to vote anywhere in the county during Early Voting, so it doesn't matter if some people can't vote on Election Day.
• Counties with Voting Centers have more illegal voting than those that don't.
Illegal voting is extremely rare in Texas, less than 0.00017% of all votes cast in total throughout the state from 2004-2021. That's 272 instances out of 94 million votes cast. And many of those instances involved mail-in, rather than in-person voting, so the actual number of possibly relevant offenses is even lower.
However, it is true that since more than 80% of the people eligible to vote in Texas live in counties with Voting Centers, more of the rare instances of illegal voting are more mathematically likely to happen in those counties.
• We don't know exactly how many people show up at the wrong polling place on Election Day because the county doesn't track it, so we should not allow countywide voting on Election Day.
Just because there are no "official numbers" does not mean the problem doesn't exist. Most election workers who have worked on Election Day in Denton County will tell you about redirecting voters. The numbers vary from one polling place to another and from one election to the next.
• Provisional ballots that are rejected because voters cast them in the wrong polling place get counted if there is a tie in election results.
Not true. Rejected ballots are never counted in any circumstance, according to the Denton Elections office.
• The GOP would not be able to control who serves as presiding election judges in polling places with Voting Centers.
Political parties control the appointments of presiding election judges at polling places in Texas. During early voting, this position is called lead deputy voting clerk, but they perform the same functions as presiding judges do on Election Day.
Judges/lead clerks enforce an extensive set of written rules about voting in each polling place. They are supposed to enforce all the rules the same way, regardless of their own political affiliation, the polling location or the political party of the individual voter.
The rules for who appoints judges/lead clerks, are set by state law. With the current system, on Election Day in primary elections, each party has its own voting locations and appoints its own presiding judges/lead clerks for each voting location. With Voting Centers, each primary polling location would have two presiding judges/lead clerks, one from each party.
For the general election, in the current system, each location has a presiding judge/lead clerk affiliated with the party that won the last gubernatorial election in the county. In Denton County, that's the GOP. Each location has an alternate judge from the party whose candidate came in second in the last gubernatorial election.
In a general election with Voting Centers, each party would have presiding judges/lead clerks at the number of polling centers proportional to number of precincts won by each party's candidate in the last gubernatorial race.
• The rules for voting on Election Day are stricter than during Early Voting. Voting Centers would change that.
Not true. For example, the laws about who is eligible to vote, what forms of ID they must use to prove they are who they say they are, and who can assist disabled voters and how they can assist them are the same for Early Voting and Election Day.
Rules about what you can wear in a polling place, how close to a polling place you can hand out candidate literature are the same for Early Voting and Election Day. Judges and clerks receive THE SAME training for Early Voting and Election Day.
Voting Centers would not change this.
Thanks for your interest,
Jane Scholz
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