Gill holds closed-door town halls
On July 30th, Congressman Brandon Gill (R, TX-26) held a series of town hall meetings in Lewisville, Little Elm, Gainesville, Decatur, and Bartonville. Afterwards, he took to social media to praise himself for hearing from his constituents.
The problem is, most of us never received an invitation.
The events were held on a Wednesday, in the middle of the day, a time at which most adults are engaged in an old-fashioned virtue called “work” and presumably unavailable to attend a political Q&A. There was no advance notice on Gill’s social media accounts, no listing on his official website, and no press release. Online searches on the websites of several media outlets local to our area: the Denton Record-Chronicle, The Cross Timbers Gazette, Gainesville Daily Register, Star Local News, Wise County Messenger, Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram appear to show that Congressman Gill didn’t bother to publicize them there either. Multiple subscribers to Gill’s newsletter report reading nothing about any scheduled town halls. Online, the only trace of advance notice comes from a handful of local conservative groups and HOA Facebook pages.
An obvious question: were these town halls meant to invite genuine feedback or just applause? Because, to most people, it would seem they were certainly curated.
I’ve spent most of my adult life living in Republican led congressional districts and, usually, voting to keep them that way. This isn’t a partisan gripe. It’s a genuine concern about the quality of our representation in Congress. Elected officials should be expected to meaningfully engage with their constituents in all of their ideological variety, not just do performative photo-ops with cherry-picked crowds to later boast about on social media.
In the United States, we live in a time when trust in government is decaying, and many people feel more and more alienated from the people who ostensibly represent us. Congressman Gill has a chance to model a different kind of politics.
So far, he has chosen something else.
Chris Celsor
Flower Mound, TX
Vote centers make for simpler voting
When GOP County Chair Melinda Preston recently talked to the Denton County Commissioners about GOP objections to countywide voting on Election Day – Vote Centers – she gave six reasons. This letter explores two of those reasons.
Background: Countywide voting is allowed now during Early Voting, but not on Election Day. Most voters are unaware of this rule. Voting locations frequently change from one election to the next and between Early Voting and Election Day in the same election.
Local TV and radio newscasters tell voters across the DFW media market on Election Day they can vote anywhere in their county — which they can in Dallas, Tarrant and Collin counties — but not Denton County
As a result, 10-15% of Election Day voters are turned away from their first polling location, some from the second or third. Some never get to vote. Others cast provisional ballots that are not counted.
Ms. Preston said countywide voting, which would solve this problem, would lead to long lines at polling places.
She didn’t mention that our current system has long lines on Election Days in some locations.
At least with Vote Centers, even if lines get long, everyone in the line would get to vote when they get to the front of the line!!!
Further, it’s up to County Commissioners – the body that funds elections — to make sure there are enough locations and poll workers to meet voter demand and avoid unreasonable waits at polling places.
She also claimed that even allowing countywide Election Day voting for all elections except primaries and primary runoffs would create confusion.
The volunteer Election Workers advocating for Vote Centers have asked that if the GOP continues to block Vote Centers for primary elections, that the Denton County Commissioners implement countywide voting for General and Municipal elections and their runoffs.
She said having rules that are different for these elections than for primaries would cause confusion.
We look at it differently: at least thousands of voters would avoid the frustration of being turned away from polling places during General and Municipal Elections and their runoffs.
As for primaries and primary runoffs, we already have polling place confusion with the assigned voting location rule now.
Sign the petition: www.Change.org/VotingCentersNow
Jane Scholz
Robson Ranch, TX
