Politics

Alternet America - Tarrant County [Texas] went blue in 2020, and its Republican commissioners have spent the years since making sure that does not happen again.

Officials in Tarrant County, Texas voted on Tuesday to cut 92 polling locations ahead of the November midterms. The third most populous county in Texas will now have 224 voting sites, down from 316 in the 2022 midterms.

The Commissioners’ Court approved the plan along party lines after a previous vote in August collapsed when residents erupted during public comment. The room had to be cleared multiple times, and former state Rep. Lon Burnam was arrested for grabbing a microphone.

Tarrant County is 31 percent Hispanic, 19 percent Black, and one of the fastest-growing areas in the state. The same Republican majority redrew the county’s precinct map last year in an unusual mid-decade redistricting that packed most Black and Latino voters into a single district and turned a 2-2 partisan split on the court into 3-1 in favor of Republicans.

The county judge who cast the deciding vote said voters would still have 54 more polling places than the law requires, which is like your boss cutting your salary and reminding you it is still above minimum wage./