2.5X more GOP voters turned away from Denton Co. polling locations than Dems!

Our county’s outdated precinct-based Election Day voting rule is causing problems for a lot more Republican voters than Democratic voters, according to a new county analysis of those turned away from polling locations in the November 4, 2025, Constitutional Amendment Election.

2.5 times as many Republicans were turned away from at least one polling location compared to Democratic Party voters.

This is ironic, because the Republican Party of Denton County is forcing this problem on Denton County, requiring us to stick with the outdated precinct-based Election Day voting system that most large Texas counties dropped years ago.  

Overall, nearly 11% of Election Day voters were recorded as being turned away from at least one polling location on Nov. 4.  (Since all re-directs were not recorded, the actual percentage, is probably higher. See below.) This is in line with four previous counts, when 11-15% of all Election Day voters were turned away.

In Denton County, voters who show up at the wrong voting location on Election Day are told they must vote at their home polling place in order for their vote to count.  This does not happen during Early Voting when voters can cast ballots at any polling place in the county.  It does not happen on Election Day in early 100 Texas counties that are home to more than 85% of the state’s voters, including Dallas, Tarrant and Collin counties.

This is the fifth recent election in which re-directed Election Day voters have been counted, but it’s the first time the county has been able to identify the party preferences of at least some redirected voters.  

The county study of redirected voters on Election Day Nov. 4 found:

• Successful voters on Election Day: 52,570.

• Recorded voters redirected on Election Day: 6,220, or 10.58%

  (This number represents recorded re-directs only.  Election workers reported that several hundred more voters were turned away from polling locations without being given the redirection slips used to document the number who were turned away.)

• Of the re-directed voters, 2,198 had voted in the 2024 Primary. Of those, 1,571 or 71% voted in the Republican Primary, while 627 or 29% voted in the Democratic Primary.

• Of the recorded redirected voters, about 80% proceeded to their correct polling site and voted, while roughly 20% did not complete the voting process after being re-directed.  (We don’t know how many of the unrecorded redirects actually cast a ballot.)

• Voters were redirected from every one of the 64 Election Day voting locations across the county.

Here’s how the study was conducted by the Denton County Elections Department:

When a voter arrives at a polling site for any election, a poll worker checks them in using Denton County’s electronic PollPad tablets that verify voter eligibility and record that they have been issued a ballot.

On Nov. 4, If the voter was at the correct polling site, they were processed normally and issued a ballot. If the voter was at the wrong polling site, the PollPad printed a redirect slip identifying the voter’s correct polling location and providing directions.   The slip also recorded the voter’s VUID number.

For Nov. 4, the PollPads were set up to print two re-direct slips. One was given to the voter with directions to their correct poling place, and the second was returned to Denton County Elections for data collection and analysis.  

Not all re-directed voters were counted because the study captured only those re-directs issued at the formal check-in station. When poll workers “walk the waiting line” to identify voters in line who were in the wrong location to reduce wait times — an informal practice used at busy locations — re-directs were often given verbally and not recorded. 

As a result, the actual number of voters who arrived at the wrong polling site was greater than what the study documented.

Let our County Commissioners, all Republicans, know that you want this silliness to stop.

• Sign our petition if you haven't already done so.

• Then sign up to speak in person for up to 3 minutes at a Commission meeting. Please do this now, even if you've spoken before!

• If you can't make it to a 9 am Tuesday morning Commission meeting, send them an email.

• Make sure your GOP friends and family members know how this is affecting their party's voters!!!!