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What the Hell Happened in Dallas County's Primary Election Last Night?

Jeff Charles
Jeff Charles  |  March 04, 2026 11:00 AM

State Rep. James Talarico won the Democratic state primary election on Tuesday night amid a wave of voter confusion in Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s (TX-30) district.

The SNAFU raised questions about how the county runs its elections, with some questioning the outcome. Crockett suggested the issue could constitute cheating and accused Republicans of targeting her district. However, on Wednesday morning, Crockett in a post on social media said she called Talarico to concede the race.

The issue centered on a change that required Dallas County voters to cast ballots at their assigned neighborhood precinct sites on Election Day instead of at any voting center in the county. The shift left many showing up at locations where they could not vote.

Dallas County Republicans had previously pushed for separate, precinct-based primary elections for each party. Democrats warned that the sudden shift would confuse voters, the Dallas Observer reported.

The change comes from the Dallas County GOP’s decision to hold separate primary elections from the Democrats. The change means that voters can vote only in their assigned precinct on election day, whereas in past elections, Dallas voters could cast their ballots at any center in the county. The resulting confusion is “not an accident,” said the Texas Democratic Party on Tuesday afternoon.

Poll workers at the Martin Weiss Recreation Center in Oak Cliff told the Observer this afternoon that several Dallasites hoping to vote were redirected to their proper precinct this morning, but that the confusion had largely subsided by midday. The Dallas Morning News reported that dozens of voters were turned away from the University Park United Methodist Church voting center early this morning, and 70 were told they could not vote at the Oak Lawn Branch Library despite having voted there in the past. 

“Democrats pushed for a joint election. As it has been for eight years, it would have been cheaper, simpler, and more accessible for every voter in the county. Republicans said no,” Kendall Scudder, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a statement.

The county employed “election navigators” to deal with the situation. These people redirected people who showed up at the wrong polling location. Some said they were sending away every second or third voter, Votebeat reported. One navigator noted that there were “a lot of infuriated voters.”

James Crolley, an Election Day inspector, explained, “If you had always voted at Mockingbird Elementary as a Republican, and you go there today, and you’re like, ‘Why am I not able to vote? This is my spot,” then “that caused a little bit of conflict.”

A state district judge granted an emergency order extending Democratic primary voting hours to 9 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. Ballots cast after 7 p.m. would be treated as provisional.

But Republican state officials escalated the matter to the Texas Supreme Court, which issued a stay on the lower court order and ordered that “votes cast by voters who were not in line to vote at 7 pm should be separated.”

The mandamus petition is still pending, which leaves the separated ballots unresolved.

Still, this mishap does not appear to have influenced the actual outcome of the election. With 92.3 percent of expected ballots counted statewide, Talarico led Crockett by 1,188,253 votes to 1,034,096, or 52.8% to 45.9%, according to NBC News’ results.

The margin of about 154,000 votes is too large of a gap to make a difference. To put it simply, even if Crockett won 100 percent of these votes, Talarico would still be the nominee.