Thousands of Texas voters showed up at wrong polling site, state Democrats say

A Dallas County judge ordered Democratic polling sites to stay open for an additional two hours on Tuesday night, March 3, 2026, after thousands of Texas voters in Dallas and Williamson counties showed up at the wrong polling locations during the Democratic primary, according to the state Democratic Party led by Director Terri Burke. Voters in Dallas County, the state's second-largest by population, will now be able to cast ballots until 9 p.m. local time as officials scramble to address the widespread confusion that has led some voters to be turned away while others cast provisional ballots that may not count. The confusion stems from a significant change in voting procedures for this year's primary, as both Dallas and Williamson counties opted to use precinct-level polling sites rather than the county-wide voting centers that had been used during early voting and in previous elections. While political parties, not local governments, oversee Election Day voting for Texas primaries, the two counties' decisions to run their primaries separately at the precinct level forced Democrats to follow suit. In Dallas County, Republicans made the change propelled by election conspiracy theories about ballot-counting machines, initially planning to hand-count ballots before abandoning those plans due to high costs but proceeding with precinct-level voting nonetheless. Texas Democratic Party Director Terri Burke reported that approximately one-third of voters in affected areas are experiencing problems, attributing the confusion to both the move to precinct-based voting and recent redistricting efforts. Representative Jasmine Crockett, who represents a Dallas-based congressional district and is running for the Democratic Senate nomination, condemned the situation as an attempt to suppress the vote, stating that voters in both counties had grown accustomed to countywide voting. Her campaign is monitoring the situation and exploring solutions, including the extended voting hours that were ultimately granted by the court. Meanwhile, Crockett's primary opponent, state Representative James Talarico, expressed deep concern about reports of voters being turned away from polling sites, highlighting the broader implications of the administrative changes on the democratic process.