Tarrant County Enough is Enough RallyOUR LIVES. OUR VOTES. OUR VOICE.
Families and advocates will rally and march to the Tarrant County Courthouse Sept. 1 for the “Tarrant County Enough Is Enough" rally, demanding Commissioners account for a budget that drains reserves and cuts services, 81 deaths in Sheriff Bill Waybourn's jail, and a polling location plan that leaves the county with fewer Election Day sites than in 2022. “224 doesn't cut it — we need our 2022 sites back, and more.”-Tarrant County Coalition
Fort Worth, TX
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08/30/2026 Impacted families, voting rights advocates, faith leaders, and community
organizers will rally at Tarrant County College Trinity River Campus at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, September 1, across from the Tarrant County Jail, before marching to the Tarrant County Courthouse (east side entrance) to demand that the Commissioners Court reject a Republican majority plan to permanently cut 92 Election Day polling locations from the sites voters used in 2022. As of today, 81 people have died under Sheriff Waybourn’s watch. After the Jail Rally on July 17th, 2026, the Commissioners Court has again failed to address community concerns over the failures at Tarrant County Jail. Failure in the jail has resulted not only in loss of life, but in extreme pain for the families of the deceased, without accountability and without answers. The action comes as County Judge Tim O'Hare, Commissioner Manny Ramirez, and Commissioner Matt Krause prepare to vote at the September 1 Commissioners Court meeting on a "revised" polling place list the
county released on August 27. County officials have framed the new list, 224 Election Day sites, as a retreat from an earlier proposal of just 176 sites that drew sustained public opposition. That opposition included a
nearly seven-hour hearing on August 4 in which O'Hare cleared the courtroom and former state Representative Lon Burnam was arrested for refusing to stop speaking. Fort Worth activist EJ Carrion was arrested the following week after an issue was warranted for his public comments. New analysis of the county's own data shows the "revised" plan still eliminates nearly a third of the polling
locations Tarrant County voters actually used four years ago, when the county operated 316 Election Day sites and 50 early voting sites. The Republican majority is counting on the community to read '224, up from 176' and exhale," We are not exhaling. The number that matters is the one we actually had: 316. By that number, this is still a 92-site cut, and it falls hardest on the same neighborhoods they have been hitting all year. They are not compromising. They are negotiating how much they can get away with.
Who is actually losing their polling place
According to an analysis published this week by writer Chris Tackett, comparing the county's September proposal against its 2022 sites by zip code, poverty rate, vehicle access, race, and 2024 vote share, the cuts fall in a pattern the county has not addressed:
• By poverty: The quarter of zip codes with the highest poverty rate have lost about 41% of their 2022 sites.
The wealthiest quartile has lost about 15%.
Tarrant County Coalition Page of
1 4• By race: The quarter of zip codes with the highest share of Black or Hispanic residents have lost an average
of 41% of their 2022 sites. The rest of the county has lost an average of 22%.
• By 2024 vote: The quarter of zip codes that voted most heavily Republican in 2024 lost an average of 9.6%
of their sites. Every other zip code, regardless of partisan lean, lost an average of 33%.
• By neighborhood, by name: Six zip codes in Fort Worth and Arlington are down 63% to 75% from 2022. 76103 had three Election Day sites in 2022 and now has zero, unchanged by the "revised" plan. 76115 is down 75%. 76104, the poorest zip code in the analysis, is down 71%. 76119 and 76164 are each down 67%. 76010 (Arlington) is down 63%. Of the 48 Election Day sites added between the August and September proposals, only five (roughly one in ten) landed in the ten zip codes facing the steepest cuts. Three of the six zip codes that lost every early voting location they once had are still at zero. The result, in
practical terms, is that voters in four of the hardest-hit zip codes, including 76104, 76115, and 76119, now face 200% to 400% more people funneling into whatever sites remain, on top of longer drives, in neighborhoods that already have the least slack in their day to absorb either.
A separate, forthcoming analysis by data scientist Brody Mulligan found polling locations in minority communities would decrease by 57%, compared to a 35% reduction in predominantly white communities — a pattern he warned "would create chaos, mass confusion," and could "erode people's trust in the voting system." The NAACP has stated that this plan "strips away polling access on a scale that will hit Black and Brown voters hardest," and that this is "not a coincidence.”
Tarrant County's registered voter rolls have grown, not shrunk, since 2022 — from 1,226,353 registered voters in March 2022 to 1,306,427 in March 2026, an increase of roughly 80,000 voters, or 6.5%, according to voter
registration data compiled by the Barbara Jordan Leadership Institute. Access to the ballot should expand alongside the electorate, not contract.
Last year they cut over 100 sites. This year they are coming back for 92 more. They have told us who they are. They have cut the poorest neighborhoods hardest, the Black and brown neighborhoods hardest, and
every neighborhood that isn't safe Republican turf — hit harder, no matter how you slice it. That is not math.
That is a plan. And on September 1 they want to lock it in while everyone is congratulating them for moving from 176 to 224. Tarrant County has more registered voters and more people than it did in 2022. The answer to that is more sites, not fewer. If 316 worked for 2022, the floor for 2026 should be 316, and the honest number is higher. Anything less is voter suppression, and we will say so at the courthouse and at the ballot box in November.
What the Coalition is Demanding
• Approve a polling location list with at least as many Election Day and early voting sites as the county used
in 2022 (316 and 50, respectively), and add more to keep pace with population and voter registration
growth since then.
• Reinstate college campus polling locations, including the Maverick Activities Center at UT-Arlington and
Tarrant County College's Northeast Campus.
• Publish the full methodology used to select the sites that were proposed for elimination, including the data,
assumptions, and any input from commissioners or outside parties.
Tarrant County Coalition Page of
2 4****NOTE: Tackett's and Mulligan's analyses use different methodologies and are not directly comparable
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Tackett's
figures reflect a quartile-based comparison (the most-affected 25% of zip codes vs. the rest), while Mulligan's preliminary
figures reflect a different classification of communities. The two analyses point in the same direction but should be cited
separately, not combined.
Event details- Tuesday, September 1, 2026
8:30AM Tarrant County Jail Rally
Location: Tarrant County College Trinity River Campus, across from the Tarrant County Jail,
Fort Worth (near Belknap & N.Lamar)
~9AM March: Following the Tarrant County Jrally, participants will march to the Tarrant County
Courthouse, East side entrance
~9:15AM Press Conference: At the courthouse, with impacted families and community leaders.
Speakers to be announced.
~9:45AM The Tarrant County Democratic Party will host (separate from the Tarrant County Coalition) a
brief press conference at the Commissioners Court Plaza (near the sleeping panther sculpture)
10AM Tarrant County Commissioners Court Meeting
The rally is open to the public. Press should RSVP and direct questions to:
Sabrina Ball (Indivisible TX-12)
817-343-7173
Tarrant County Coalition Organizations
Barbara Jordan Leadership Institute
Black Voters Matter
By Any Means 104
Clear Rule of Law
Cowtown Democrats
Democratic Socialists of America- FTW Chapter
Families United for Accountability and Transparency
Fort Worth Area Indivisible
Good Trouble Lunch Bunch
Indivisible TX12
Indivisible TX24
Let Ladies Lead
Move TX- Fort Worth Chapter
Northwest Progressives
Planned Parenthood TX Votes
Powered by the People
See It Name It Fight It
Tarrant County Coalition Page of
3 4Singing Resistance FTW
Southside Community Gardens
Sunrise Tarrant
Tarrant County Democratic Party
Tarrant County Young Dems
Tarrant4Change
Texas Civil Rights Project
Texas Organizing Project
The 817 Gather
The 817 Podcast
The Justice Network of Tarrant County
The People's Commissioners Court
Young Active Labor Leaders-DFW
**[Members of these organizations will be available for comment at the event]
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