Rowlett voters will now have two sites to cast ballots early for the Nov. 5 election, but it’s unclear if both locations will be open by the time early voting starts Monday because the city is threatening to revoke one of the building’s operating certifications.
The Dallas County Commissioners Court voted 4-1 to add Rowlett Community Centre as an additional polling location to Freedom Place Church, a little less than a mile away. The approval comes after Rowlett’s mayor sued the Commissioners Court and the county’s top elections official, arguing the church didn’t have enough space to accommodate early voters properly.
Dallas County District Court Associate Judge Rachel Craig last week approved a temporary injunction denying the church as the city’s sole early voting location. About a half dozen sites will be open in Rowlett on Election Day.
Commissioner John Wiley Price, who represents Rowlett, was the lone dissenting vote. He believed Freedom Place Church would have enough parking for voters and feared the county’s approval to override its elections department’s site designation set a “dangerous precedent.”
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“What happens when the next city decides that they want a second voting center?” Price said.
The commissioner’s comments counter Rowlett Mayor Blake Margolis and a resident couple who sued. They said it’d be illegal to host early voters only at the church. They cited its 10 parking spaces shared with four tenants as insufficient for the city’s nearly 65,000 residents and said it would hamper access for voters with disabilities and those who are elderly.
Meanwhile, whether Freedom Place Church keeps its doors open is up in the air. The city recently sent a letter to the evangelical church saying a review of its certificate of occupancy found it was issued last year by mistake, and the church has to provide a revised plan to show it has adequate parking. Otherwise, its operation certification would be revoked. Church officials accused the city of religious discrimination and threatened legal action.
Cori Reaume, Rowlett’s director of community development, didn’t immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment on the status of the church’s certificate of occupancy.
Hiram Sasser, an attorney representing the church, said talks are ongoing.
“We are in discussions with the city over the certificate of occupancy and will continue to fight to ensure that the church remains open to the community,” said Sasser, who is also executive senior counsel for the First Liberty Institute, a Plano-based law firm that focuses on defending churches in religious liberty cases.
Sasser also told The Dallas Morning News the county decision “seems like a win-win to us.”
“We are pleased that Dallas County is sticking by Freedom Place Church, and the more voting locations available to folks, the better,” he said.
Rowlett officials told Dallas County they supported the city’s community center serving as an early voting and Election Day polling location, according to a copy of an Aug. 13 email in the lawsuit from Rowlett interim city secretary Stacey Chadwick to Price and Dallas County Election Administrator Heider Garcia.
That site has more than 360 parking spaces, and 22,150 voters cast ballots there early during the 2020 presidential election. The community center had the eighth-highest cumulative total of early voters of the around 60 sites open in Dallas County at the time.
The church hasn’t previously been used as a voting center. County officials estimate adding the Rowlett Community Centre to its roster of early voting sites will cost an extra $20,000 to $40,000. Early voting runs from Oct. 21 to Nov. 1.
“We were not seeking to strike the church as an early voting polling place. We were just seeking to add the Rowlett Community Centre as an option for the citizens in Rowlett,” Kyle Pugh, an attorney representing Margolis and the other two plaintiffs, Michael and Barbara Britt, told The News after the county vote. “We honestly don’t know why the commissioners court selected the church and not a public building with greater infrastructure to accommodate what everyone believes will be a record voting turnout.”
County commissioners approved replacing the Rowlett City Hall Annex building with Freedom Place Church as both an early voting and Election Day site on Sept. 3.
During an Oct. 1 Commissioners Court meeting, when several Rowlett residents voiced concerns about the church’s small size and lack of parking impacting voters’ access, Price and Garcia told commissioners the site was found suitable as a polling location.
Garcia said Freedom Place was selected because of its downtown location. Church officials volunteered the site because it could be used for early voting and Election Day, Garcia said. He noted Rowlett’s City Hall Annex building was used for early voting last spring, but it was not a site for voters on Election Day.
He said the county’s assessment of the church as a polling location just focused on whether it met federal requirements.
“It doesn’t speak to how many people can be processed,” Garcia said during the Oct. 1 meeting. “What the survey tells us is, yes, we can use it and someone in a wheelchair will be able to enter and leave without any obstacles.”
Price, at the time, said the county planned to include curbside voting, increase directional signs to help ease traffic and arrange additional handicapped parking. The church only has one space.
“The site has been fully vetted by and meets all legal requirements for a voting site,” the commissioner said during the Oct. 1 meeting. “The concern raised about size, parking ... have been addressed and all measures will be taken to ensure smooth and accessible voting.”
Several commissioners suggested approving the community center Oct. 1 as an additional voting spot in case the church was ordered to shut down ahead of early voting.
In an Oct. 7 letter sent to Reaume, First Liberty Institute Senior Counsel Jeremy Dys urged the city to withdraw its letter noting issues with the certificate of occupancy. He argued it was illegal.
“Regardless, we have advised our client that the members and visitors of the church are fully within their rights peaceably to assemble at the church regardless of what the city does, unmolested by officials with the city,” the letter said. “Should they be penalized or their civil rights be otherwise punished or burdened, we are prepared to vigorously defend our client’s rights in court as outlined herein.”
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Everton covers Dallas city government. He joined The Dallas Morning News in November 2020 after previously working for The Oregonian and The Associated Press in Hartford, Conn.
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