Under DOJ Pressure, Waller County Adds Additional Early Voting Locations

If you aren’t familiar with voting rights abuses in Waller County over the last three decades, this story may not mean much, but to those familiar with the county’s history, it will:

Under pressure from the federal government, Waller County on Tuesday added three temporary polling places for early voting, ditching plans to open only one voting site in advance of the March 4 primary.

The Justice Department questioned the county’s January decision to cut early-voting sites from a half dozen throughout the county to just one in Hempstead. The county’s about-face came on the same day that vocal critics announced a mass march to the polls next week.

Commissioners made the change in an emergency session Tuesday to address questions from federal voting officials about whether one site would infringe on the rights of minority voters.

Early voting begins Tuesday, but the additional sites won’t open until the end of next week. They will be available for voters from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Feb. 22 and 23.

Last month, Waller officials defended their decision to reduce early voting to one location because they said the county couldn’t afford more equipment or personnel. The county will have about 15 voting sites on Election Day.

Waller County has faced numerous lawsuits involving voting rights in the past 30 years and remains under investigation by the Texas Attorney General’s Office based on complaints by local black leaders. Those allegations, concerning the November 2006 general election, related to voting machine failures, inadequate staffing and long delays for voting results.

Critics held a news conference Tuesday afternoon outside the Houston federal courthouse to say they were not satisfied with the county’s sudden early-voting expansion and to announce their march on Tuesday to the county courthouse to vote.

DeWayne Charleston, a Waller County justice of the peace, also said he was unimpressed with the Justice Department’s Feb. 7 letter to county officials.

“They took almost two months to respond in such a critical and crucial situation. They’re just as culpable in this situation as the county,” he said.

The DOJ told the county their changes in voting procedures were “legally unenforceable,” which is, in and of itself, very amusing, given Waller county’s history.

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