Rowlett church accuses city of ‘sabotage’ over voting feud, threatens lawsuit

ROWLETT — A Rowlett church is accusing the city of religious discrimination and sabotage after city officials threatened to shut it down days before the church is set to host early voting.
In a letter to the city Monday, an attorney for Freedom Place Church said the city is violating state and federal law and threatened to sue if Rowlett does not back down. Mayor Blake Margolis told The Dallas Morning News the city is reviewing the letter before issuing a public response.
The letter comes one week after the city informed the church that its certificate of occupancy was issued in error in December 2023 and could be revoked because the church lacks adequate parking per city ordinance. The church was given 10 days to respond or face closure.
Freedom Place is slated to serve as the only early voting site in Rowlett, a town of more than 60,000, for the November election. The city has instead proposed Dallas County move early voting to the community center, less than a mile away, which hosted early voting in 2020.
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Early voting for the general election begins Oct. 21.
On Monday, the evangelical church demanded the city immediately drop the challenge to its certificate of occupancy.
“This is completely unlawful discrimination, targeting the church simply for acting as a polling location,” Hiram Sasser, executive general counsel for First Liberty Institute, said at a news conference Monday afternoon at the Rowlett church. The Plano-based law firm specializes in defending churches in religious liberty cases.
In a phone interview with The News last week, Margolis said Freedom Place is not large enough and does not have enough parking to accommodate early voters. He said he is particularly worried about elderly and disabled voters navigating the lack of parking.
The church in downtown Rowlett has 10 parking spaces, including one handicapped space, all of which are shared with a neighboring florist. A public parking lot is roughly 1,000 feet away. In 2020, 22,000 people early voted at the Rowlett community center, an average of roughly 1,800 per day, making it one of Dallas County’s busiest early voting locations.
“I hope common sense prevails,” Margolis said of moving the early voting site. “I hope Dallas County does the right thing for Rowlett voters.”
Dallas County, with the help of an advisory committee, evaluates and selects polling places, which are approved by county commissioners. A handful of Rowlett residents urged commissioners to move the site at a Dallas County commissioners meeting earlier this month, citing parking and lack of access.
“I think we should have a safe place to vote,” Katherine Kirk, who lives in Rowlett, told commissioners.
Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins said at the meeting he was reluctant to move a polling place days before early voting begins and that some candidates have likely already printed campaign materials listing the church as a voting location.
Texas law says polling places should be in public buildings, such as schools and city halls, if they are available. Yet churches often serve as voting sites. In 2022, Christianity Today found that churches accounted for 20% of polling places nationwide. In the November election, roughly 50 of the 450 polling places in Dallas County are at churches.
“Conflicts over the correct relationship between religious communities and the state frequently grab headlines,” Christianity Today wrote. “But church polling places are rarely controversial.”
In the case of Freedom Place, however, some residents in Rowlett have pointed out the pastor of Freedom Place, Kason Huddleston, has made numerous statements on social media in support of former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee.
The church serves as a meeting place for the Rowlett Area Republican Women’s Club and Rowlett Republican Men’s Club. According to its website, the church hosts classes to help women recover from abortions and helps “Christians learn about their responsibility to vote and their Godly American heritage.”
Freedom Place, which has roughly 80 members, started more than 20 years ago in Rowlett. It moved to its current site in downtown a couple years ago, Huddleston said.
“Our whole vision is to be a blessing in this city,” Huddleston said.
This is not the first time the city and Freedom Place have sparred over elections.
At a City Council meeting in September 2023, the mayor said he did not want Freedom Place to serve as a polling place for a special City Council election, in part because the pastor had endorsed a candidate.
“In my opinion, early voting should always occur in a place of neutrality,” Margolis said at the meeting. In an email the next day to Dallas County officials, Margolis said the city council would not allow voting in a church. Attorneys for Freedom Place provided a copy of the email obtained through an open records request.
“That’s not where voting belongs, and especially when the Pastor of this specific church has endorsed a candidate who will be on the ballot in November,” Margolis wrote.
The dispute returned this year. Dallas County Elections Administrator Heider Garcia told The News that Rowlett only offered part of the community center, and elections officials did not know if the space would be adequate. Since then, he said, the city has offered more of the community center.
Garcia said the politics of building owners do not play a role in the selection of polling places, and that election judges ensure there is no electioneering.
“People have their opinions. Everything is political these days,” Garcia said. “But the pastor is not running the election. The building owner is not running the election. Election judges are responsible for the elections.”