San Antonio voting rights advocates are sounding the alarm about Cornerstone Church’s selection as a polling location in the November elections due to its long history of controversial right-wing activism.
Valerie Reiffert, executive director of voting advocacy group Radical Registrars, and local voting rights advocate Kathleen Vale posted a joint statement on Facebook last Friday asking Bexar County to eliminate the planned polling location at the 5,000-seat megachurch’s sprawling North Side campus due to its frequent participation in partisan politics.
“[P]olling places must be neutral, safe, welcoming environments for every voter,” the statement said. “Cornerstone’s history raises legitimate questions about whether it meets that standard. Under Pastor John Hagee’s leadership, Cornerstone has developed a documented record of political activity extending well beyond providing a convenient community facility.”
Reiffert initially raised the issue at a Sept. 24 public meeting of the County Elections Advisory Board, which both Vale and Reiffert attended as committee members.
At the meeting, Bexar County Election Administrator Michele Carew “listened to concerns, evaluated the issue and agreed to remove Cornerstone as a polling location,” according to the online statement from Vale and Reiffert, both of whom also serve on the Mayor’s Commission on Voting.
However, the next day Commissioner Grant Moody — the sole conservative on Bexar County’s Commissioners Court — overruled Carew’s decision to remove Cornerstone, stating that Commissioners Court had already approved the list of polling locations.
Vale, Reiffert and other local voting rights advocates are asking that Cornerstone be struck once again from the list of polling stations. As an alternative, they proposed Alzafar Shrine Temple — a Shriners meeting space on North Loop 1604 — which offers a “suitable public facility offering comparable voting access in the same area.”
The activists are also asking for transparency about the county’s process and criteria for selecting polling locations.
History of pushing a right-wing agenda
In their joint statement, Vale and Reiffert pointed to numerous political gatherings held at Cornerstone over the years, which have welcomed prominent Republicans including U.S. Senator John Cornyn and Gov. Greg Abbot to speak to its congregation.
In 2021, Cornerstone made headlines when it hosted a far-right political rally at which former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn called for the United States to adopt “one religion.” Viral video from the event, which also featured conspiracy theorists Mike Lindell and Alex Jones, also showed attendees chanting “Let’s go, Brandon” — a stand-in for “Fuck Joe Biden.”
Further, Hagee established one of the largest pro-Israel lobbying groups, Christians United for Israel, or CUFI, and regularly publishes books available on his Hagee Ministries website that push political conspiracy theories.
“These events do not establish that Cornerstone violated election law. Nor does political participation automatically disqualify a church from serving as a polling location,” Vale and Reiffert stated. “But they raise a reasonable question: why should voters be expected to enter a facility so closely associated with partisan political advocacy when alternative neutral public facilities are available in the same geographic area?”
Cornerstone is co-led by founder Hagee and his son, Matt Hagee. Both father and son have a history of controversial statements.
Voting rights advocates argue that John Hagee’s long history of disparaging remarks about other denominations could make voters of other faiths uncomfortable when they arrive to cast their ballots.
In 2008, John Hagee, whose church is nondenominational, enraged many when he called the Catholic Church “the Great Whore.” That same year, the pastor again found himself in hot water after stating that God arranged the Holocaust to lead to the formation of the state of Israel.
“God sent Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land,” Hagee said in a comment for which he later apologized.
John Hagee has continued to wade into politics and controversial claims since then. In June 2025, he posted a fireside-chat-style video championing President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, saying “no president in Israel’s history has done more to support the Jewish people than President Trump.”
In the video, Hagee went on to praise Trump for sending “billions in military weapons to Israel to ensure that Israel has what she needs to defend our shared values and fight our mutual enemies.”
Another post by Hagee’s son Matt, dated Sept. 10, 2025, honored far-right political commentator Charlie Kirk immediately following his assassination.
“Today the hearts of millions of Americans are broken over the senseless murder of Charlie Kirk,” Pastor Matt Hagee’s post stated. “He was a bold champion of Truth and lived his life as a light to a world filled with evil and darkness.”
How church politics turn into activism
The political statements of Cornerstone’s leaders also blend seamlessly into its political advocacy.
A video clip of a sermon by Matt Hagee posted on July 16 asked his congregation, “What can I do about a socialist, communist agenda?” Hagee answered: “Choose this day whom you will serve.”
After the evangelical church had been selected as an early voting and Election Day location for the upcoming midterms, a Facebook post from the church encouraged its congregation to vote and “consider the issues through the lens of your biblical convictions.”
The Sept. 23 post featured an image of Republican former President Ronald Reagan and a quote attributed to him, as well as an image featuring stickers that read “Vote the Bible.”
The post links to a page on the Cornerstone Church website with a variety of voting resources, including a Cornerstone-hosted voter registration portal, powered by @Vote. Another portal linked on the church’s voter resource site allows its site visitors to receive text reminders to vote as Election Day approaches.
The megachurch’s “Vote” page appears prominently as an option on the top menu of its website. And while the text of the portals appears nonpartisan on its surface, a side menu repeats the familiar refrain: “Vote the Bible.”
This refrain — “Vote the Bible” — is currently echoed on a neon sign outside the church on the sprawling complex as well as on digital screens inside the church, according to video and photos Vale provided to the Current.
A video clip of a sermon, posted in late September, was about whether Christians should be involved in politics.
“Oftentimes when we discuss matters like this in church, people immediately want to say, ‘Why does the church get so political?'” Matt Hagee told the congregation. “As long as God’s enemies are in politics, then God’s people should be in politics.”
In the same sermon, Matt Hagee announced the existence of Cornerstone’s voter registration portal. During the sermon, he added that the church had “individuals set up in the lobby” to help members of the congregation check their voter registration status and register to vote.
The sermon was reminiscent of a 2024 YouTube sermon by Matt Hagee that was posted ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“Realize this: in less than 90 days the citizens of the United States will make a decision that without question is going to have an impact on the next 90 years,” he said in a darkened room over foreboding music.
“As a Christian, I’m not a Republican nor a Democrat — I’m a Bible believer,” Hagee added in the video. Nonetheless, he urged his audience to “vote the Bible.”
The 22-minute sermon largely danced around partisan politics, but the hashtags made it clear: “#ConservativePolitics.”
Fourteen minutes into the sermon, Hagee’s vague message crystalized as he stated that the congregation “simply cannot allow a group of immoral elitists to enslave us in a socialist dictatorship.”
In addition to reaching thousands in person at its North San Antonio campus, the church has its own television station. Its broadcast arm, Global Evangelism Television Inc., claims to reach 92 million homes worldwide each week.
Bexar County ‘dropped the ball’
On the phone with the Current, Vale said such a blatantly political location should never have been approved by Elections Administrator Michele Carew, who has the power to choose locations at her discretion. At county Elections Advisory Board meetings, Carew said the county had to add polling locations to accommodate a growing population, Vale said.
But Vale argued that Carew should have allowed for public comment on Cornerstone as well as other new polling locations before the list was finalized.
“We have really dropped the ball in Bexar County,” Vale said.
At the Sept. 24 meeting, Carew was questioned by both Vale and Reiffert for her selection of the church as a polling location.
Vale said Carew got “defensive” in her response and maintained she had “no idea” of Cornerstone’s history because she’s “not from San Antonio” and “moved here for the job.”
“I don’t feel safe going there as a Black woman,” Reiffert said during the meeting. On the phone with the Current, Reiffert pointed to a mock slave auction held at Cornerstone in 1996 as part of what she sees as a history of blatant racism.
Christine Welde, chair of the Bexar Democratic Party’s Election Integrity & Voter Protection Committee, said she’s also concerned about voters feeling comfortable casting a ballot at Cornerstone given its leaders’ rhetoric.
“A polling place should be somewhere every voter — Catholic, LGBTQ+, Muslim, Jewish, nonreligious, Republican, Democrat or independent — can enter without feeling targeted or unwelcome,” Welde said. “Given Cornerstone’s history and the potential for protests or controversy, San Antonio has many other locations that would provide a more neutral and welcoming environment for voters.”
By the end of the Sept. 24 meeting, Carew had Googled Cornerstone and said she wasn’t comfortable with the church hosting a polling place, according to both Vale and Reiffert. The elections official said that even if the county didn’t move that location to Alzafar Shrine Temple, she was removing Cornerstone, according to the activists.
However, that Saturday morning, Vale said she got a call from Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones asking if she had received an email from Yvonne Pelayo, chair of the Bexar County Elections Advisory Committee. The email, obtained by the Current, stated that Precinct 3 Commissioner Grant Moody shot down Carew’s decision to remove the polling location, which is in his precinct.
“Cornerstone is located in Precinct 3 and as such, Commissioner Moody was given the opportunity to discuss the matter,” the email from Pelayo said. “Commissioner Moody emphasized that the list of polling places has already been approved by commissioners court and as such, the location should be utilized as planned.”
In her email, Pelayo called the debate over Cornerstone’s fitness as a polling location a “learning experience” for the county.
Under the Texas Election Code, polling locations can be removed, even after county commissioners have approved a list. Indeed, Reiffert told the Current that Bexar County Jail had been removed from a list of polling locations — a move celebrated by local Republican Party officials.
“I am not recommending jail-based voting for November,” Carew told county officials in an Aug. 10 email obtained by the Current. “There are still a number of unknowns, and I do not feel that Bexar County is in a position to implement this securely and effectively at this time.”
Kris Coons, chair of the Republican Party of Bexar County, praised Carew’s decision to remove the jail as a polling place in an email response obtained by the Current.
Reiffert said the jail’s removal proves that the removal of polling locations is — at least sometimes — done at Carew’s discretion. Or at least, it appears to be.
Neither Carew nor Moody responded to the Current’s request for comment.
Though Vale insisted that some county commissioners had expressed support for removing Cornerstone as a polling location, the three commissioners besides Moody — Tommy Calvert, Justin Rodriguez and Rebeca Clay-Flores — also didn’t respond to the Current’s request for comment. The Current also received no response from County Judge Peter Sakai’s office.
It remains unclear whether one commissioner can veto a decision to remove a polling place if other commissioners support its removal.
The Texas Election Code doesn’t expressly forbid partisan locations from hosting polling stations. Rather, it leaves the selection criteria up to each county, requiring counties to “adopt a methodology for determining where each polling place will be located.”
Bexar County doesn’t have such a methodology, Vale told the Current.
Additionally, Vale said Carew should have highlighted the new polling locations when seeking County Commissioners Court approval of the list on Aug. 18.
Beyond that, Carew should have presented the list to both the Bexar County Democratic and Republican Party chairs for approval, Vale argued.
Bexar County Democratic Party Chairwoman Michelle Lowe Solis told the Current via text that while she did receive a list, she wasn’t sure whether that was before or after commissioners had approved it.
Vale said a lack of transparency or county-level guidance has left the county with a polling place at Cornerstone, which raises troubling questions about who will feel welcome to vote there.
“In my opinion it is not a neutral space, it’s not a safe space, it’s not a nonpartisan place, and it’s not a place that reflects the values of Bexar County,” Vale said.
