Tarrant County Republicans targets minority student voters & their representatives by cutting polling locations
When running for Tarrant County Judge in 2022, Republican Tim O’Hare was infamously recorded saying:
“If you’re a Republican officeholder and you haven’t been called a racist, then you probably haven’t done a thing.”
O’Hare wasn’t making an idle observation, he was making a promise on how he would act if elected County Judge. Now, he is keeping his promise.
O’Hare cuts polling locations at universities with large diverse student bodies
In recent elections, the Tarrant County Commissioners Court approved 50 early vote locations in Tarrant County. Among them were college campuses that serve diverse student body populations, including the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) and the Tarrant County College (TCC) campus in south Fort Worth. Also, among them were locations serving much less diverse populations like Texas Christian University (TCU).
Rather than simply renewing the list and getting on with the 2024 elections, Tim O’Hare is bullying through a new, shorter list that eliminates UTA, TCC South campus, and some other sites serving diverse populations while leaving in-place locations serving far less diverse populations.
O’Hare is leading an overt effort to suppress voting altogether and to make it especially hard for younger Black, Hispanic, Asian-American, and other voters of color.
O’Hare scheduled the vote when he knew commissioners from minority districts would be absent
Don’t think Tim O’Hare is unaware of the racial implications of his actions. O’Hare has scheduled the vote on the new shortened voting location list when the two commissioners who represent majority-minority districts – Roy Charles Brooks in District 1 and Alisa Simmons in District 2 cannot be present to state their objections and build the record against O’Hare’s racist efforts. Their absences were planned and approved months earlier. O’Hare scheduled the vote to specifically exclude the two commissioners who represent not just half the entire population of Tarrant County but the only two districts with majority-minority populations.


How O’Hare defends racist actions
O’Hare often tries to camouflage and deflect attention from his racist actions by saying he is simply being a partisan Republican and that “elections have consequences.” It’s not just a crass and cynical view; it is arrogant and dishonest. Tim O’Hare is laser-focused on suppressing minority votes. He is closing polling locations located in easy proximity to minority voters and shown to be sites where minority citizens cast their ballots.
And from a district election perspective, O’Hare’s patronizing “elections have consequences” quip doesn’t hold water. O’Hare won a close county-wide election, but he lost both Commissioner Districts 1 and 2, where a majority of Tarrant County citizens of color live. Tim O’Hare knows that when he punishes voters in Districts 1 and 2, he is intentionally targeting minority voters. He knows who they are, and he knows what they look like.
Tim O’Hare’s move to close early voting locations has nothing to do with “elections have consequences” and has everything to do with his view that overtly racist actions are just Republicans doing their jobs.