Republicans pull SHOCKING election stunt in Texas

**Brian Tyler Cohen** (0:01)
Republicans continue their voter suppression tactics ahead of midterms, this time as chaos unfolded in Tarrant County, Texas. And I've got two interviews, Robert Garcia and Ro Khanna. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie.
So this is what just happened at a public meeting in Tarrant County, Texas, as Republicans voted three to two along party lines to shut down 92 polling locations ahead of midterms. Here's the deal. Tarrant County, the third largest county in Texas, home to Fort Worth, and one of the most important swing counties in the entire state is going from 316 polling locations down to just 224 That's nearly a third of the county's voting infrastructure that's just gone right before an election that Republicans know is going to be brutal for them nationally. Now, one of the Democrats who was on the commission said, quote, it's not about cost. This is about power. This is very political. This is campaigning from the dais, which by the way is a pretty remarkable thing for a sitting commissioner to say directly to the people voting on this measure, that you're not administering an election, that you're rigging one directly from your own seat on the dais. Now, the official justification here is that this is about saving money and efficiency, and they've pointed to low turnout in low propensity locations. And look, in a vacuum, a county could make a boring technical case about resource allocation, but that's not what's happening here. And I think the timeline makes that obvious. Consider the fact that this didn't come out of nowhere. This comes on the heels of Tarrant County's 2025 redistricting fight, which already drew weeks of controversy and accusations of gerrymandering from residents, civil rights advocates and local leaders who wanted that whole process halted. So this is chapter two of the same story. First, you redraw the maps to lock in your advantage, which Republicans have already accomplished. Then you make it physically harder for the wrong people to cast a ballot, which they're accomplishing right now.
So what do I mean, by the way, by wrong people, the wrong voters? Well, look at who specifically loses access here. One of the sites on the chopping block is the University of Texas at Arlington polling location. That is a campus that has spent years actively building youth civic engagement, which, shocker, tends to skew Democratic. Reverend Ryan Price and multiple community members specifically flagged that these cuts would disproportionately hit communities of color across the county. In other words, this isn't like some neutral formula spitting out random closures. This is the Republicans doing what they have been doing for years, which is to suppress the vote with surgical precision against communities that don't historically vote for them.
And I want to be clear about the scale of the opposition here, because Republicans have tried to frame what went on in Tarrant County as some quiet technical adjustment that nobody cared about. That's not what happened. Over 140 people signed up to speak against this. Hundreds of protesters stood outside the courthouse for more than three hours in nearly 100 degree heat. Public comment ran for over two hours, and law enforcement had to physically escort somebody out of the room. So this was not some sleepy bureaucratic vote that nobody was watching. Tarrant County residents showed up in force. They were loud, angry and completely ignored anyway, because the outcome was decided before a single person even spoke.
And it didn't stop there. After the initial vote, Democratic commissioners tried to bring back a proposal to reinstate 37 of the polling places that have been cut. The Republican majority voted it down two times. The same three to two party lines split. So, this wasn't a case of like, well, maybe they'll walk it back once they hear from the public. They heard from the public extensively and they doubled down twice when they were given a chance to fix it.
With that all said, it doesn't look like the voters in Tarrant County were willing to give up, because here's one clip from one attendee that gained traction online from within that meeting.

**Ro Khanna** (3:38)
I want to reiterate what the nice lady before me said.

**Robert Garcia** (3:42)
You're fired, Mr. Tim O'Hare, Matt Krause.

**Ro Khanna** (3:46)
I guess maybe you're safe.

**Robert Garcia** (3:48)
Uh, Manny Ramirez, wherever he is.

**Ro Khanna** (3:52)
You guys are out.
What could possibly be so important? Mr. O'Hare, can you listen to me, please? Hello? Hello?

**Robert Garcia** (4:00)
Can you look at my eyes, please?

**Ro Khanna** (4:01)
I can hear every word you're saying.

**Brian Tyler Cohen** (4:03)
I want you to look me in the eyes.