HB 311 would have allowed Texas to join 42 other states and the District of Columbia in letting people electronically register to vote. Credit: Flickr / Erik (HASH) Hersman

The Bexar County Commissioners Court has called a special meeting for Tuesday after the county lost a lawsuit filed by the Texas Civil Rights Project, which called for additional polling sites ahead of the Nov. 8 election, Texas Public Radio reports.

Last week, a state district judge ruled that the county must operate 388 polling stations during the 2022 election rather than a slimmed-down count.

The ruling marks the second time the county lost a lawsuit over its proposed number of polling stations. In 2020, a separate Texas Civil Rights Project suit forced the county to operate 302 polling stations.

County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen, who initially planned on opening only 267 sites this election, told TPR that it’s been difficult finding people to work the polling stations. The average age of a poll worker in Bexar County is 71 years old.

Callanen previously argued that having more than 270 polling sites is counterproductive, saying during a September press conference that many of the closed polling stations had only a couple of voters during the last election. She’s also said new rules allowing voters to cast ballots outside their precincts justified cutting the number of sites.

Despite those justifications, commissioners Tommy Calvert, Rebeca Clay-Flores and Justin Rodriguez criticized Callanen’s efforts to cut the number of polling stations in underserved communities on the East, South, and West sides, according to TPR.

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This article appears in Oct 5-18, 2022.

Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...