

With 74 closures, Dallas County, which is 41 percent Latino and 22 percent African American, is the second largest closer of polling places, followed by Travis County, which is 34 percent Latino, (–67). Five of the six largest closers of polling places are in Texas.

Texas, a state where 39 percent of the population is Latino and 12 percent is African American, has closed 750 polling places since Shelby, by far the most of any state in our study. Our hope is that journalists, advocates, and voters will use this county-level polling place data to scrutinize the impact of poll closures in their communities, to understand their impact on voters of color, and to create a fairer and more just electoral system for all. Department of Justice conducted under preclearance - takes time and resources. This analysis - precisely the kind that the U.S. To understand the discriminatory impact of these closures, we analyzed how voters of color were impacted at the precinct level. We found 1,173 fewer polling places in 2018 - despite a significant increase in voter turnout. Additionally, Democracy Diverted analyzes the reduction of polling places in the formerly covered Section 5 jurisdictions in the years between the 20 midterm elections. In this report, we found 1,688 polling place closures between 20, almost double the 868 closures found in our 2016 report. This report relies largely on independent counts of polling places from public records requests and publicly available polling place lists. What’s more, the 2016 report relied on voluntary reports of aggregate numbers of polling places that state election officials gave to the U.S. This report covers an expanded data set of 757 counties. Our first report drew on a sample of fewer than half of the approximately 860 counties or county-equivalents that were once covered by Section 5.
