Dallas County’s vote centers increase voter convenience but not turnout

Seasoned election judge Val Hutchins recalls a time when community engagement was pivotal in driving voter turnout.

“I remember as a young girl, there was a man that drove through the neighborhood in a station wagon on a loudspeaker, reminding people today is Election Day,” she says.

These days, voters have more options than just 7 a.m.-7 p.m. on Election Day. For the upcoming Saturday, May 3 election, people can vote via mail-in ballot or during early voting, now through April 29, at any open polling place.

And on May 3, voters registered in Dallas County don’t have to locate their assigned precinct polling place — they can vote anywhere in the county they want.

In 2019 Dallas County embraced the Countywide Polling Place Program, granting voters the flexibility to cast their ballots at any polling location within the county on Election Day. This initiative, introduced in Texas in 2005, aims to make voting more convenient and streamline election processes. 

“We saw how effective it was in other counties and adopted it,” says Nicholas Solorzano, head of communication for the Dallas County Elections Department.

Prior to 2019, Dallas County had 650 voting precincts. Today, the county has between 440 and 450 polling locations on Election Day. Solorzano explains that the county consolidated lower-turnout precincts into convenient vote centers, reducing the number of poll workers needed from 3,000 to approximately 2,400. 

These decisions are made by the County’s Vote Center Advisory Committee, made up of more than 60 Dallas county community members. Solorzano says the committee worked hard to ensure that the polling places were easily accessible and met the needs of neighborhoods and community leaders.

“Democracy works best when more people participate, right?” says Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins. “And, so if it’s possible for people to vote conveniently, [it] makes our democracy stronger and makes our decisions better.”

Dallas County vote centers don’t increase voter turnout, data shows

But are more voters participating? Despite the convenience of countywide polling, recent data indicates a decline in voter participation in Dallas County. In the November 2024 general election, Dallas County reported a turnout of 57.08%, an almost 10% drop from 66.73% in 2020. 

Municipal elections fare even worse: The May 6, 2023, joint election for Dallas City Council and Dallas ISD school board seats saw a mere 8.84% of registered voters cast ballots, slightly below the 9% turnout in both 2019 and 2021.

“The trend right now is showing, it’s not really making that big of a difference,” says Autumn McCall.

McCall is a precinct chair for precinct 4031 in West Dallas. She is the first Republican to hold the position in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood that sits between Hampton and Sylvan roads and includes the historic La Bajada and Los Altos barrios, as well as the newer Trinity Groves residential and commercial developments.

“If you want to analyze, what are we getting for our tax dollars — is it really making more people vote? I don’t know. The numbers aren’t really showing that,” McCall says.

However, in other places around the state, such as Austin and Lubbock, countywide polling places have improved voter turnout.

Lubbock County participated in the original pilot program during the Nov. 7, 2006, general election and has continued participation with overwhelming support from its voters and county officials

“Countywide voting has been and continues to be an enormous success,” says Lubbock County Judge Curtis Parrish in a story from earlier this year. He says that discontinuing vote centers and returning to precinct-only centers “would be devastating to Lubbock County.” 

Since countywide polling took effect, the Secretary of State’s website shows that voter turnout in Lubbock has steadily increased during presidential elections, except for a 2% decline between 2020 and 2024. However, the highest voter turnout in Lubbock County occurred in 1992, before countywide polling, when 75% of registered voters cast their ballots as Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton faced off against President George H.W. Bush.

Countywide polling: A win for voter convenience

Dallas County Election Administrator Heider Garcia says vote centers are a “game-changer” for accessibility and efficiency.

“Think about, I don’t know — 20 years ago — when your back was up against the wall,” Garcia says. “You had to go back to that branch, and that was it. You had to plan your whole day around running errands and voting. It was very limiting, very difficult.”

Giving voters the option to vote anywhere across Dallas County has changed that, Garcia says. 

“If the answer is, you have 450 locations, and you can go to any one at any point in time, it makes it easier, and you’re more likely to say, ‘Oh, it’s not that difficult. Let me figure out who I’m going to vote for.’ ”

Garcia says that election systems should prioritize voter experience over administrative convenience. It doesn’t hurt, he adds, that vote centers reduce costs and waste. 

“These modern systems let you print ballots on demand,” he explains. “The old way — assigning 1,000 people to a location — meant printing 1,200 ballots and throwing away 1,000. That’s storage, waste and money.”

While critics argue that vote centers complicate recounts or audits, Garcia dismisses those concerns. 

“I’m helping hundreds of thousands vote more easily. We have to do what’s better for the voters.”

The political debate: Voter convenience vs. precinct-based voting

Some Republicans, like Autumn McCall, says precinct-based voting and hand-counted ballots create a more trusting system. 

“Prove it,” Garcia responds. “Print 1,500 ballots with 40 races each and show me how you count them in three hours. People get tired. It’s inaccurate. It’s been disproven over and over.”

In the 2023 Republican Primary, Texas’ Gillespie County, which includes the town of Fredericksburg, elected to hand count more than 8,000 ballots. The election judge called the vote count “a circus.”

Reporters from VoteBeat, a non-partisan, non-profit newsroom focused on elections and voting, stayed up with the hand counters all night and followed up with a story reporting on the number of precinct chairs that reported inaccuracies.

“Do you want it fast, or do you want it accurate? Just put your script together and show us how it’s supposed to work,” Garcia says.

Votebeat reported in a story earlier this month that there’s now a bill sponsored by a state representative from Lakeway, which is in Gillespie County, that would require counties opting for hand-counts to use a ballot that is capable of being scanned and tabulated by voting machines. 

If passed, the bill would allow for a faster recount or audit of any hand-counted results.

Garcia says this debate shouldn’t be about politics — it’s about policy and public service.

“If we can track it, audit it and secure it, what’s the harm in letting people vote where it’s most convenient?”

“I think we as public servants have an obligation to make it better for the people we serve,” he says. 

Is the real problem that voters have ‘lost faith in the government’?

Sylvia Lagos serves as the Democratic precinct chair for Oak Cliff’s Precinct 4074, a position to which she was appointed by the Dallas County Democratic Party chair.

Originally from La Bajada, Lagos is actively involved in West Dallas politics. She’s the president of the La Bajada Neighborhood Community Association. She says countywide polling places are a step in the right direction, and she frequently makes phone calls to remind voters in her precinct they can vote anywhere in Dallas County. 

“There’s a polling place right up the street or nearby — just go over there and vote,” she says.

However, she acknowledges that the decline in voter turnout across Dallas County highlights the persistent challenge of getting people to the polls.

“In my opinion, people have really lost faith in the government,” Lagos says. She says it’s up to precinct chairs to remind voters of the connections between their vote and policies.

“You have precinct chairs, in my experience, that are not as involved. You have precinct chairs that don’t attend all of the county executive meetings,” Lagos says. “Your duties are as a precinct chair, you know, to encourage people to get out and vote, but if you yourself cannot meet your own obligations of attending meetings, how can you give what you don’t have?”

Precinct chairs, typically appointed for two-year terms by party leadership, are unpaid and often lack the resources needed for effective outreach. Hutchins suggests that a renewed focus on community involvement, combined with the flexibility of countywide polling, could address the persistent issue of low voter turnout.

Lagos says what works is building relationships in the community.

McCall agrees. She met with city council candidates in her district before deciding which signs to put up in her yard. She moved into her West Dallas neighborhood four years ago, and as she’s watched the neighborhood continue to gentrify, she says she sees opportunities for Republicans to grow their base.

In every presidential election since 2016, the number of Republican voters has doubled in precinct 4031. She notes that incomes for 4031 are “definitely starting to rise,” but attributes the shift to something else.

“I think the political scene has really changed,” McCall says.

Hutchins says community-driven initiatives are the key to getting people to the polls.

“I remember when my godmother was precinct chair, and she would go down her roster and see people who haven’t come to vote and she would remind them to come and vote.”

Hutchins’ godmother was former Dallas city councilmember and housing activist Mattie Nash. 

“You want a good judge that’s knowledgeable. Someone that is going to explain the process to you. That’s going to walk you through it,” Hutchins says. 

She doesn’t see the same commitment to community-building today as she did during her godmother’s time.  

“I think we are falling short,” she says. “You have to have boots on the ground.”