James Talarico
Role at the time: Texas state representative and Democratic U.S. Senate nominee
Condemned
Statement summary
James Talarico said powerful officials wanted to make voting more difficult as he urged Tarrant County to reject the polling-site reductions.
“The most powerful people in this county, the most powerful people in this country, don't want us to be able vote easily.”
Open source (opens in a new tab)Plan to cut number of polling sites in a major Texas county draws protests as Senate race looms · Associated PressParagraphs quoting James Talarico after the description of the proposed cuts, and Matt Shaheen after the statewide context
The AP report quotes Talarico's allegation that powerful officials wanted voting to be harder and Shaheen's statement, made of polling site reductions in Texas, that the reductions are not an attempt to suppress the vote. The report does not say when Shaheen made the remark.
Why we used this label
Talarico attributes the proposed reductions to an intent to make voting harder. Because the case asks whether the cuts were intended to skew the election, that condemns the plan as an effort to restrict access.