Voters in two major Texas counties were turned away at polling locations and directed to different precincts Tuesday, after a recent change in how the primary is conducted created confusion and frustration.

In Dallas County, a judge ordered polls to remain open for two hours past the scheduled 7 p.m. closing time, citing “voter confusion so severe” that it caused the website of the county election office to crash. The judge was acting on a petition filed by the local Democratic Party.

In Dallas and Williamson counties, voters had been allowed to cast their ballot anywhere in their county for years. But for this primary, the local Republican parties opted against countywide voting. State law says both major parties have to agree to the countywide system for it to be in effect.

That meant that on Tuesday all voters in the two counties could cast ballots only at their assigned precinct.

The campaigns of the two Democrats running in the party primary for U.S. Senate denounced the effect of the change on voters and called for the poll hours to be extended.

“Both Dallas and Williamson county voters have grown accustomed to countywide voting, including on election day,” U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett ‘s campaign said. “This effort to suppress the vote, to confuse and inconvenience voters, is having the intended effect as people are being turned away from the polls.”

The campaign of James Talarico, a state lawmaker, said it was “deeply concerned” about the reports of voters showing up at polling locations and being sent elsewhere.

Adding to the confusion was the fact that voting locations also might be specific to someone’s party affiliation, said Nic Solorzano, a spokesperson for the Dallas County Elections Department.

“We’re seeing a lot of people that are going to their vote centers that they usually go to … and not realizing they can’t do that anymore. They have to go to their precinct-based location,” he said.

It was not immediately clear whether the judge’s ruling applied to all voting precincts or just the ones for Democrats.

Texas was one of three states kicking off the 2026 midterm elections Tuesday, along with North Carolina and Arkansas. Voting otherwise went fairly smoothly, except for a problem with electronic poll books in one rural North Carolina county that prompted the state elections board to delay the release of statewide results by an hour.

Tomas Sanchez, a student at Dallas College, was among those who showed up at a voting location on campus to cast his ballot in Texas’ Democratic primary. But he was under a “mistaken impression” and told that he needed to vote at his assigned precinct, a location about 6 miles (about 10 kilometers) away and closer to his neighborhood.

“This is something that we were really concerned about, honestly,” Solorzano said. He added that after nearly seven years of voters being able to cast their ballots anywhere in the county, “then we kind of had to retool our entire operation to go back to precinct-based voting for Election Day.”

The county elections department has been putting up signs, running ads and sending text messages and mailers to make people aware of the change. On Election Day former poll workers were stationed outside voting locations with tablets to help people find the correct place to cast their ballot.

While Solorzano said his department was not keeping track of how many people were been turned away, local Democrats said the number was significant.

Brenda Allen, executive director of the Dallas Democratic Party, said her offices were swamped by hundreds of calls from voters of both parties trying to find their precincts. She noted that congressional districts in the county also were remapped in Texas’ mid-decade redistricting and that new precinct lines were only finalized in December, leaving little time to inform voters.

“Lots of reports of people being turned away, hundreds of people unable to vote. Both parties are affected by this,” Allen said. “It’s not great.”

In Williamson County, which includes suburbs north of Austin, the state capital, the local Democratic Party headquarters was slammed by calls, executive director Madison Dickinson said.

“We’re having significant problems with the precinct-level voting,” she said, adding that, like in Dallas, even Republicans were confused by the change and were calling the Democratic Party for help.

Republicans were less vocal about the changes online, although the Dallas County Republican Party posted a link showing voters where to find their assigned polling places. The Williamson County Republican Party did not respond to a request for comment.

___

Associated Press writer John Hanna contributed.

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Four of the six U.S. soldiers killed in the Iran war were identified Tuesday by the Pentagon as members of the Army Reserve from different states who worked in logistics and kept troops supplied with food and equipment.

They died Sunday when a drone hit a command center in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, just a day after the U.S. and Israel launched its military campaign against Iran. Iran responded by launching missiles and drones against Israel and several Gulf Arab states that host U.S. armed forces.

Those killed were Capt. Cody Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska; Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota; and Sgt. Declan Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, lowa, who was posthumously promoted from specialist. No other names were released.

“These men and women all bravely volunteered to defend our country, and their sacrifice will never be forgotten,” Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll said.

All were assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command, which provides food, fuel, water and ammunition, transport equipment and supplies.

“Sadly, there will likely be more, before it ends. That’s the way it is,” President Donald Trump said of deaths.

Amor was just a few days away from returning home to her husband and two children when she was killed.

“You don’t go to Kuwait thinking something’s going to happen, and for her to be one of the first – it hurts,” Joey Amor, her husband, said Tuesday.

Amor was an avid gardener who enjoyed making salsa from the peppers and tomatoes in her garden with her son, a senior in high school. She also enjoyed rollerblading and bicycling with her fourth-grade daughter.

“If you needed anything she would just take care of it for you,” Joey Amor said. “She’s helped a lot of people through a lot of dark times, and brought a lot of light to this world.”

Coady’s LinkedIn page said he was a student at Drake University and an information technology specialist with the Army Reserve.

He said he had learned how to “interact with countless different kinds of people from all different backgrounds” through his service.

Coady became an Eagle Scout in 2020, according to a Facebook post from his West Des Moines troop. An Iowa organization that helps homeless children said he made 12 Adirondack chairs for the group.

Nebraska U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts said he and his wife are mourning Tietjens’ death and praying for his family.

“May we always remember and honor the sacrifices made by Noah Tietjens and the Tietjens family,” Ricketts said.

Tietjens was married with a son, according to a Facebook page. A photo online shows the couple with their son wearing a martial arts uniform.

There are several family photos on Facebook pages belonging to Amor and her husband, Joey Amor, including some images with a teen son.

Last November, Joey wrote a post expressing his love for Nicole.

“Even while you are on the other side of the world you found a way to make my birthday special,” he said. “I love you!”

___

Associated Press writer Rebecca Boone contributed from Boise, Idaho.

NEW YORK (AP) — The wealthy Alexander brothers used the same tactics of luring, drugging and humiliation to sexually assault numerous women and girls, bragging about their exploits in blog posts with titles that included “It’s not rape if,” a federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.

In a closing argument after four weeks of testimony in the siblings’ federal sex trafficking trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Jones reviewed the often harrowing accounts of 11 women who allege they were sexually assaulted by Alon, Oren or Tal Alexander.

The allegations are corroborated by the “sheer number of victims who testified,” the prosecutor said — women who never have met each other and live different lives, but “have one horrific thing in common: they were raped by these men.”

Far from hiding their activity, the brothers bragged about it in text messages, emailed about sneaking drugs — or “party favors” — onto a cruise ship, recorded at least one assault on video and shared photos of victims, Jones said, calling it “devastating evidence” supporting the charges against them.

“You know this playbook because the defendants did this multiple times,” Jones said, chronicling alleged assaults at Hamptons mansions; New York City apartments; an Aspen, Colorado, ski trip; and a Caribbean cruise. One woman testified that Alon Alexander raped her in 2012, hours after they had met at actor Zac Efron’s Manhattan apartment. Efron was not accused of any wrongdoing.

Oren and Tal Alexander, high-end real estate brokers dubbed “The A Team,” and their brother Alon, an executive at their family’s private security firm, have pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and other charges.

In a closing argument, a lawyer for Alon Alexander said prosecutors conflated the brothers’ “obnoxious” and admittedly inappropriate banter with grave criminal allegations. Alon “should be and is embarrassed” by the language he used — but “talk doesn’t constitute a crime,” defense lawyer Howard Srebnick argued.

The defense’s closing arguments will continue on Wednesday.

The brothers are accused of meeting victims at nightclubs, parties and on dating apps, and recruited others for trips to ritzy locales, paying for flights and lodging at high-end hotels or luxe vacation rentals before drugging and raping them. After witnessing an assault at a Hamptons mansion, one woman pulled out her eyeliner and wrote “RAPIST” on a bedroom door, Jones said.

“A lot of the evidence at this long trial was hard to see and hear,” Jones said. “A lot of it was brutal. That’s because the defendant’s crimes were brutal.”

Jones reminded jurors of a video, played during the trial, of Oren Alexander appearing to rape a drugged 17-year-old in 2009 at the Manhattan apartment he shared with his brothers. Oren recorded the video with his laptop computer — and could be seen adjusting the angle before the alleged assault, Jones said.

“You can see the playbook in action here,” Jones said. “When you saw him pick up her limp legs and climb on top of her lifeless body, you knew what you were seeing.”

On another occasion, Jones said, two of the brothers and two other men raped a 16-year-old boarding school student who had skipped her prom to join them in the Hamptons. A photo of the girl, sleeping topless, was found on one of the brothers’ laptop hard drives, he said.

Now in her 30s, she testified that the assault only ended when she kicked one of the men away. Afterward, she said, Tal Alexander told her: “Don’t be mad at me.”

Another woman, a United Nations intern invited to the Hamptons mansion that weekend, testified that she saw the brothers dragging someone to a hot tub and assaulting her. The victim pleaded with them to stop and they didn’t, Jones said, recounting the intern’s testimony.

“I work for the U.N. and I know what you’re doing to girls in there,” the intern screamed before scrawling the “RAPIST” message, Jones said.

The prosecutor urged jurors to reject defense claims that prosecutors were criminalizing “hookup culture” and that accusers were motivated by shame or by money.

“Now that you’ve seen these women for yourselves, you know how wrong that is,” Jones said, noting that one witness was the daughter of a billionaire. “There’s not been an ounce of shame in this courtroom.”

“What walked into this courtroom was not shame,” Jones added. “It was courage and resolve. It was the truth.”