Southwest ISD is moving away from a controversial voting rule which has long forced voters to cast school board ballots in one location, and municipal and countywide ballots in another.
“SWISD voters will be able to go to any early vote or election day site for this election,” said Jorge Fernandez, a technical support manager for the Bexar County Elections Department.
District spokesperson Jennifer Collier also confirmed the elections change, noting that it was not a board or policy decision, but a staff decision to change the district’s contract with the Bexar County Elections Department.
“After meeting with the Bexar County Elections Office recently, we reached a mutual decision to conduct our elections through the countywide election process,” Collier said in a statement.
The board’s leaders have long said their old approach helped filter out voters who aren’t familiar with local school board issues, while critics have argued that it’s voter suppression.
“We didn’t want people not voting for the right people at Southwest because they’re out there voting for all these other things, and then we’re at the very end, and ‘OK, well, let’s just check these two off,’” Southwest ISD Board President Sylvester Vasquez Jr. told KSAT last year.
“…I’d be concerned if it opened up, you know, citywide, and uninformed people would vote for other people,” said Vasquez, who was on the ballot that year, and was reelected to another term.
In a nod to those concerns, some local Democrats are still reckoning with the impact that a high-profile U.S. Senate primary had on some down-ballot races in their primary last month.
The March 3 primary election saw unusually high turnout for Democrats eager to cast a ballot for either state Rep. James Talarico (D-Round Rock) or U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Dallas), but at the same time, some popular incumbent judges seemed to be swept out with the tide.
But Southwest ISD’s policy has also created a higher bar for participation, forcing residents to cast their school board ballot at one location, and go to another to vote on municipal or countywide issues.
Two positions were on the ballot for SWISD’s 2025 board elections — and only 1,102 votes were cast.
Vasquez Jr., who has been on the board since 2000, won with 388 votes last year. Ida Sudolcan, who was first elected in 2003, followed with 384 votes.
“When access is limited — intentionally or not — it can lead to voter suppression,” 2025 school board candidate Erlinda Lopez-Rodriguez told KSAT. Lopez-Rodriguez went on to lose that year, taking 237 votes.
This year two of the district’s seven school board races are on the May 2 ballot.
Two incumbents, James Gonzalez, a Frito-Lay sales rep, and Jose Diaz, who owns and operates a trucking business, face challenges from former members they unseated three years ago, Pete Bernal and Yolanda Garza-Lopez.
Bernal and Garza-Lopez have been promoting the expanded voting access in ads.
The seven-member board serves staggered, three-year terms, and includes many longtime incumbents.
Every seat is an at-large position, meaning the top vote-takers win even if they don’t get a majority of the vote.
Early voting runs April 20 through April 28 for the uniform election, though polls will be closed on Friday, Feb. 24 for the Battle of Flowers Parade.
Polls will be open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on election day, Saturday, May 2. (Note, this election is separate from the May 26 primary runoff election).
