Should polling places be movable?

A Republican-led effort at the Capitol would do away with the places where 22,934 Travis County residents cast their ballots in last November’s general election.

That’s just under 5 percent of all votes cast in the county. But before you knee-jerk react to Dallas state Sen. Don Huffines and blast his Senate Bill 703 as just another GOP voter suppression effort, let’s hear him out and see if this makes any sense.

The bill is a bit tough to follow (at least for me), and Huffines acknowledges it might need some tweaking, but his goal is clear and clearly delineated in the bill’s caption: “Relating to prohibiting movable early voting polling places.”

Many counties use those to make voting as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. So where’s the downside? Huffines says it’s not that movable polling places can move, it’s to where they’re moved.

“What we’re trying to solve is manipulation of the result of an election by moving the polling location to benefit one side or the other,” he said.

He’s particularly suspicious about school district bond elections. He claims school officials, seeking approval for bonds for a new football stadium, have put mobile early voting places at the old stadium on Friday nights, eager to connect with fans who’d like a new stadium.

“When you move the mobile polling booth to the football stadium on Friday nights, that does seem to have an impact on the election results,” Huff-