Texas

Texas: The hard-fought voting bill is poised to become law. Here’s what it does. | Alexa Ura/The Texas Tribune

Though delayed in their quest, Texas Republicans are close to passing sweeping legislation to further restrict the state’s voting process and narrow local control of elections. The Republican majorities in the House and Senate are expected to soon sign off on the final version of Senate Bill 1 and send it to Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature. They are setting new rules for voting by mail, boosting the role of partisan poll watchers and rolling back local initiatives meant to make it easier to vote — specifically those championed by Harris County that were disproportionately used by voters of color — while expanding access in more conservative, rural areas. Compared to the spring’s regular legislative session, Republicans in both chambers have been more closely aligned in their approaches to the priority legislation, using as a blueprint the massive voting bill, then known as Senate Bill 7, that Democrats doomed in May when they staged an 11th-hour walkout to break quorum. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most significant portions of the wide-ranging legislation expected to become law. It will go into effect three months after the special legislative session, kicking in before the 2022 primary elections.

Full Article: Texas voting bill: Here’s what’s in the legislation poised to become law | The Texas Tribune

Texas House advances new voting restrictions as Democratic hopes of killing the legislation wane | Alexa Ura/The Texas Tribune

After months of drama and political resistance, the curtain lowered Thursday on Democratic attempts to stave off a far-reaching rewrite of the state’s voting laws coveted by Republicans seeking to retain their hold on power in a changing Texas. One week after finally regaining enough members to conduct business, the Texas House slogged through a 12-hour floor debate before signing off on a slightly revised version of the Republican legislation that first prompted Democrats to stage a nearly six-week absence from the Capitol. The late night 79-37 vote on Senate Bill 1 moves the state closer to enacting new voting restrictions, including limits on early voting hours and other measures opponents say will raise new barriers for marginalized voters, especially voters of color, who tend to vote Democratic, and those with disabilities. The House is expected to give the bill final approval on Friday, leaving the House and Senate to resolve their differences before the legislation heads to Gov. Greg Abbott.

Full Article: Texas House lawmakers pass GOP-backed voting restrictions bill | The Texas Tribune

Texas Fight Over Voting Rights Nears End as Democrats Return 7 J. David Goodman and David Montgomery/The New York Times

Full Article: Fight Over Voting Rights in Texas Nears End as Democrats Return – The New York Times

Texas audit proposed by GOP would miss minor but real errors | Nicholas Riccardi and Paul Weber/Associated Press

A group of Texas Republicans wants to audit the 2020 election results in just the large, mostly Democratic counties across the state. If they get their way, they’ll miss many of the real — but minor — errors in the state’s vote count. That’s according to a team of researchers that conducted a statewide analysis of the results across both Democratic and Republican counties. The group found a series of errors that would not come close to changing Republican Donald Trump’s victory in the state or any other statewide race. But the errors stretch across both Republican and Democratic counties. The research adds to a pile of evidence that contradicts the belief, widespread among Republicans, that elections in Democratic areas are rife with errors, irregularities and mismanagement. While errors in the tally do occur, research shows they tend to be random and small scale and do not benefit one party or the other. In Texas, the mistakes, detected by election researchers from the University of Florida, were scattered across 37 of Texas’ 254 counties. They added or subtracted a handful of votes from various candidates with no skew toward one party or the other. Trump apparently received 223 more votes than the 5,890,347 that the Texas secretary of state lists as the Republican’s total. Democrat Joe Biden appears to have received 155 more votes than his listed 5,259,126, according to the research. Minor mistakes like the Texas ones are relatively common, say election experts. In Texas, the errors are likely due to the state’s use of an older computer system that requires counties to enter their tallies by hand, increasing the risk of errors when the wrong digit is typed.

Full Article: Texas audit proposed by GOP would miss minor but real errors

Texas: In one quote, the core of the effort to undermine the 2020 election is revealed | Philip Bump/The Washington Post

Full Article: In one quote, the core of the effort to undermine the 2020 election is revealed – The Washington Post

Texas Democrats face hurdles as they hope Congress passes voting bill | Abby Livingston/The Texas Tribune

Texas Democrats slipped out of the state 10 days ago because they were out of options back home, powerless to stop the Republican majority in the Legislature from passing its priority voting bill. With Gov. Greg Abbott committing to call more special sessions until the legislation is passed, Democrats have said they’re pinning their hopes on Congress to take action to block the attempts to restrict voting access. Now in their second week hunkered down in the nation’s capital, the Democrats’ primetime TV interviews are slowing down and their meetings with members of Congress are spacing out. They are getting a crash course in Washington dysfunction and confronting the reality that their issues are not immune to legislative paralysis. “We are astute about Texas politics and the way Texas government works, but it’s been a learning curve to understand how things work in Washington,” said Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa of Austin. The options ahead are fairly grim. “To state the obvious, Senate action on an elections bill would require some sort of waiver of the filibuster rule,” wrote Rich Cohen, the chief author of the Almanac of American Politics and a longtime congressional observer, in an email. “In itself, that likely will take additional time. With the Senate seemingly focused on infrastructure legislation for at least the next couple of weeks — and even with the prospect of some legislative work days in August—it’s hard to see that Democrats would come together on limiting the filibuster without pursuing extended internal discussions.” Last month, Republicans blocked the For the People Act, a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s elections, in the Democrat-controlled Senate thanks to a Republican filibuster.

Full Article: Texas Democrats face hurdles as they hope Congress passes voting bill | The Texas Tribune

Texas Republican lawmaker proposes forensic audit of 2020 election, but only in big counties that mostly backed Biden | Eva Ruth Moravec/The Washington Post

Support is growing among Texas Republicans for a push to audit the results of the 2020 election in a state that former president Donald Trump won handily. But the proposal, introduced in the House earlier this month, would only re-examine votes in Texas’s largest counties, most of which went for President Biden. The legislation, House Bill 241, calls for an independent third party appointed by the state’s top GOP officials to conduct a forensic audit of results in counties with more than 415,000 people. Of the 13 counties that meet that criteria, 10 voted for Biden last year. The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Steve Toth, said earlier this week that his constituents are concerned about fraud in the election. In an interview, Toth added that he also became convinced an audit was needed after a meeting earlier this year with U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.), who claimed to have evidence of vote fraud in a 2018 race that he lost. “No amount of fraud should be acceptable in our election system,” Toth said. “I think it’s important that we get to the bottom of this and make sure that people start to believe in their voting system.” But Democrats and some election officials say there is no need for an audit, pointing out that Republicans have not demonstrated any evidence of widespread fraud in the state. “We’re chasing ghosts. It has been proven, time and again, that there was no major election fraud. P.S.: Trump won Texas,” said Lorena Perez McGill, a Democrat who lost to Toth in the November election. “So I don’t understand what he seeks to accomplish with this.” For now, the bill is stalled as House Democrats continue to wait out a 30-day special session in Washington, D.C., denying Republicans a quorum to continue. But the effort is the latest attempt by state lawmakers across the country clamoring for audits following Trump’s false claims of mass voting fraud after his loss.

Full Article: Texas Republican lawmaker proposes forensic audit of 2020 election, but only in big counties that mostly backed Biden – The Washington Post

In Texas, Efforts To Make Voting Harder Has Some Worried In Harris County | Andrew Schneider/Houston Public Media

Texas already has some of the strictest voting laws in the country, and the state’s Republicans are trying to make them even tougher. Most of the state’s Democratic lawmakers have flown to Washington, D.C., to prevent a vote on legislation they call voter suppression. The center of the battle is Harris County, where Houston is located. The county is home to more than 4.7 million people, a larger population than the state of Louisiana. Last year, Harris County introduced an array of voting innovations to make it easier and safer to vote during the presidential elections. They included drive-thru voting, expanded voting hours – with one day of 24-hour voting – and sending out mail-in ballot applications to all eligible voters. Joy Davis is a stay-at-home mom and the mother of a young son with severe autism. She voted in a drive-thru location on the east side of Houston. “Oh, it was amazing,” Davis says. “It was so convenient. I felt safe, because it was at the highlight of the pandemic before I was able to get any vaccinations….When I arrived, it was just so simple, so easy, so effortless. We just pulled up, showed my ID, they directed us to a tent, and you know we met with the poll worker there, they gave us the machine so we could cast our ballot, and that was it. I cast my ballot.”

Full Article: In Texas, Efforts To Make Voting Harder Has Some Worried In Harris County – Houston Public Media

Texas Democrats may find themselves in the wilderness of wandering public attention | Ross Ramsey/The Texas Tribune

The spotlight won’t shine for long on the story of Texas’ flyaway Democrats. The novelty will wear off. The cable TV networks will have other top stories before you know it, and this will become another of those insider fights of only passing interest to Texans who don’t have regular business in the state Capitol. Voting rights are important to voters, but most people only pay attention to the particulars at election time. Where do I go? What do I have to do? Who and what is on the ballot? Who are all of these people, and which ones are in my way and which ones can I ignore? But the next big elections in Texas aren’t until March at the earliest — and those, the party primaries, could easily be delayed until May or later because of delays in the 2020 U.S. census, and the resulting delays in drawing new political maps to fit new details of where Texans live and how many of them live there. For now, it’s enough to know that the state government in Texas is dysfunctional, but not in a way that has any immediate effect on the lives of everyday Texans. That’s a particular problem for the wandering Democrats whose political play depends, to some extent, on public attention. They decamped on Monday, faced with the prospect of showing up to watch Republicans approve a bill with new restrictions on voting that they cannot abide.

Full Article: Analysis: Texas Democrats race against time, and flagging public attention | The Texas Tribune

Texas: Behind the partisan drama lies a profoundly serious struggle over who gets shut out under voting laws | Alexa Ura/The Texas Tribune

The dramatic exodus of Democratic Texas lawmakers to block a Republican voting bill has choked the political airways in a haze of confusion, posturing and finger-pointing. But beneath the smoke, a fire rages. Many Democrats, especially those who are people of color, are incensed, seeing the latest Republican voting bill as another moment of crisis in a state they believe has long marginalized people like them in the halls of power. Many Republicans, passions stoked by unsubstantiated claims of widespread voting fraud, see their hold on political power slipping away, and are clamoring for a firewall. The struggle over voting rights in Texas goes beyond the legislative theatrics of the moment. It is fundamentally a clash not just of elected officials, but of the two constituencies they represent. It is a fight over whose voices will be heard that began long before the Democrats shut down the Texas Legislature, and the stakes are not trivial. The two days preceding the Democratic flight offered a microcosm of the standoff. As a House committee fast-tracked the GOP’s voting bill over the weekend, hundreds of Texans descended on Austin to plead their cases against it. They were left milling in the Capitol’s basement corridors for more than 17 hours, waiting for their allotted three minutes to address the House’s committee on constitutional rights and remedies created specifically to consider the special session agenda.

Full Article: Behind the drama lies a profoundly serious struggle over Texas voting laws | The Texas Tribune

Texas Democrats will stay out of Texas until Aug. 6 to block voting bill | Abby Livingston and Alexa Ura/The Texas Tribune

Shortly after landing in Washington D.C. in an effort to deny the Texas House a quorum to block a voting restrictions bill, House Democrats indicated they plan to remain out of state until the end of the special legislative session that ends Aug. 6. Democrats’ Monday departure from the state upends the Legislature’s ability to turn any bills into law just days into a 30-day session that was called largely to advance GOP-backed legislation that would enact new restrictions on voting. Asked by a reporter what the caucus planned to do if Gov. Greg Abbott called another special session for the next day, state Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, suggested that was the reason behind why they had decamped to the capital. “That’s our message to Congress,” said Turner, the Fort Worth Democrat who chairs the House Democratic caucus. “We need them to act now.” At least 51 of the 67 Democratic members of the Texas House — the number needed to break quorum — fled the state on Monday, most of them boarding two chartered planes that landed in D.C. around 7 p.m. Central time. Last month, a delegation of Democratic state representatives and senators traveled to the U.S. Capital to advocate for a pair of federal bills. The first would preempt significant portions of the Texas bills and set new federal standards for elections like same-day and automatic voter registration. The second would restore sweeping safeguards for voters of color by reinstating federal oversight of elections in states like Texas with troubling records of discriminating against voters of color. This time the group was much larger — at least two buses full of members as of Tuesday night — and state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, referred to the expanded numbers as “reinforcements.”

Full Article: Texas Democrats will stay out of Texas until Aug. 6 to block voting bill | The Texas Tribune

Texas GOP begins hurried second try at thwarted voting laws | Paul J. Weber and Acacia Coronado/Associated Press

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday began a hurried second attempt to toughen election laws in Texas, weeks after Democrats’ dramatic walkout from the state Capitol thwarted one of America’s most restrictive voting measures. He demanded no specific voting changes to reach his desk this summer, but Republicans who fumbled their first try at passing a sweeping overhaul of Texas elections at the last minute in May are already promising to work fast, saying hearings will start this weekend. The haste reflects the usual time crunch of a normal special legislative session in Texas — which last just 30 days — but also the GOP’s eagerness to put behind them a rare and highly public defeat in America’s biggest red state over what has been a priority for the party since the November elections. Abbott, who is up for reelection in 2022, has already shifted his focus toward picking up Donald Trump’s mantle on immigration since the May walkout. Republicans are also backing away from the two most contentious issues that fueled Democrats’ dramatic quorum break just before a midnight deadline over the Memorial Day weekend. Still, Republicans are expecting many of the sunken bill’s provisions to return once the special session begins Thursday. “The Senate and the House are both eager to work on this issue and get it done,” said Republican state Rep. Jacey Jetton, who helped negotiate the final version of the sweeping elections bill that Democrats blocked.

Full Article: Texas GOP begins hurried second try at thwarted voting laws

Texans with disabilities fear voting obstacles under proposed GOP restrictions | Alexa Ura/The Texas Tribune

It took Nancy Crowther three hours, four public bus rides and an impressive amount of gumption to make sure her vote counted in the 2020 election. She’s hoping Texas lawmakers don’t make it even harder the next time. With Texas Republicans determined to enact additional voting restrictions in the upcoming special legislative session, much of the uproar has focused on changes that could make it harder for people of color to cast ballots. Less attention has fallen on another group of voters bracing for what could happen to them under the GOP’s renewed push to further tighten the state’s voting procedures — people with disabilities, for whom the voting process is already lined with potential obstacles. Among them are people like Crowther, a 64-year-old retiree, who could have been shut out from voting last November had it not been for her own tenacious determination. Immunocompromised because of a neuromuscular disease, Crowther chose to forgo her usual trip to a nearby polling place and instead turned to mail-in voting in hopes of safeguarding her health during the pandemic. But as Election Day neared — and after experiencing interruptions in her mail service — she began to worry her ballot wouldn’t make it back to the county in time.

Full Article: Texans with disabilities fear voting obstacles under proposed GOP restrictions | The Texas Tribune

Texas: Law adds auditable paper voting system requirement in state | Thomas Wallner/Graham Leader

Senate Bill 598 was signed into law two weeks ago and will require voting machines in the state to have an auditable paper voting system, including the systems available for voting in Young County. SB 598 was approved during the 87th Legislative Session following approval from the Texas Senate in April and Texas House of Representatives in May. The bill was sent to the office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott June 1, and was signed into law June 14. According to SB 598, no later than 24 hours after all ballots have been counted in an election, the election records custodian will conduct a risk-limiting audit for a selected statewide race or election measure. The Texas Secretary of State will select the precincts to be counted and the office or proposition to be counted. Hart InterCivic will be at the Young County Courthouse Tuesday, July 27, to demonstrate the new technology and software which will be implemented with SB 598, and the office of Young County Elections is inviting the public and poll workers to the event. The company will be presenting at the Young County Courtroom on the first floor from 1-2 p.m.

Full Article: Law adds auditable paper voting system requirement in state | Graham Leader

Texas Gov. Abbott calls special session, setting stage for GOP to revive voting restrictions | Jane C. Timm/NBC

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is calling lawmakers back to Austin on July 8 for a special legislative session, where a controversial election legislation Democrats have decried as voter suppression is expected to be back on the agenda. Democrats blocked a sweeping election bill in the final hours of the legislative session last month by staging a rare walkout and breaking quorum. Abbott, who had told lawmakers the legislation was one of his top priorities, responded furiously and vowed to force lawmakers back to Austin for a special session. The governor’s office did not confirm that the July 8 session would include election legislation, but Abbott had previously said he planned to call two special sessions: one focused on elections and bail reform, followed by a second session in September or October focused on redistricting and allocating federal coronavirus funds throughout the state.

Full Article: Texas Gov. Abbott calls special session, setting stage for GOP to revive voting restrictions

Texas Democrats Are Pressing Their Congressional Counterparts To Expand Voting Rights | Susan Davis/NPR

A group of Democratic Texas state lawmakers traveled to Washington, D.C., this week to meet with congressional Democrats and Vice President Harris as part of a broader effort to pressure those in their party to pass far-reaching voting rights and election reform legislation. The Texas lawmakers met Tuesday with staff of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., a key opponent of the bill, called the For the People Act. Manchin himself did not attend. “I think they heard us,” Texas state Rep. Jasmine Crockett told reporters, referring to Manchin’s staff. Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer called it an “extremely productive visit.” The Texas legislators also had a private meeting with a group of Senate Democrats. “They must have gotten five or six standing ovations,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on Tuesday. “We were really taken by their courage, their bravery and, most importantly, their mission.”

Full Article: Texas Lawmakers Pressure Democrats To Pass Elections Bill : NPR

Texas State bar investigating Attorney General Ken Paxton over Trump election lawsuit | Jake Bleiberg/Associated Press

The Texas bar association is investigating whether state Attorney General Ken Paxton’s failed efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election based on bogus claims of fraud amounted to professional misconduct. The State Bar of Texas initially declined to take up a Democratic Party activist’s complaint that Paxton’s petitioning of the U.S. Supreme Court to block Joe Biden’s victory was frivolous and unethical. But a tribunal that oversees grievances against lawyers overturned that decision late last month and ordered the bar to look into the accusations against the Republican official. The investigation is yet another liability for the embattled attorney general, who is facing a years-old criminal case, a separate, newer FBI investigation, and a Republican primary opponent who is seeking to make electoral hay of the various controversies. It also makes Paxton one of the highest profile lawyers to face professional blowback over their roles in Donald Trump’s effort to delegitimize his defeat. A spokesman for the attorney general’s office did not respond to requests for comment. Paxton’s defense lawyer, Philip Hilder, declined to comment. Kevin Moran, the 71-year-old president of the Galveston Island Democrats, shared his complaint with The Associated Press along with letters from the State Bar of Texas and the Board of Disciplinary Appeals that confirm the investigation. He said Paxton’s efforts to dismiss other states’ election results was a wasteful embarrassment for which the attorney general should lose his law license. “He wanted to disenfranchise the voters in four other states,” said Moran. “It’s just crazy.” Texas’ top appeals lawyer, who would usually argue the state’s cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, notably did not join Paxton in bringing the election suit. The high court threw it out.

Full Article: AP Exclusive: State bar investigating Texas attorney general

Texas Attorney General Says Trump Would’ve ‘Lost’ State If It Hadn’t Blocked Mail-in Ballots Applications Being Sent Out | Jason Lemon/Newsweek

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said former President Donald Trump would have lost in Texas in the 2020 election if his office had not successfully blocked counties from mailing out applications for mail-in ballots to all registered voters. Harris County, home to the city of Houston, wanted to mail out applications for mail-in ballots to its approximately 2.4 million registered voters due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the conservative Texas Supreme Court blocked the county from doing so after it faced litigation from Paxton’s office. “If we’d lost Harris County—Trump won by 620,000 votes in Texas. Harris County mail-in ballots that they wanted to send out were 2.5 million, those were all illegal and we were able to stop every one of them,” Paxton told former Trump adviser Steve Bannon during the latter’s War Room podcast on Friday. “Had we not done that, we would have been in the very same situation—we would’ve been on Election Day, I was watching on election night and I knew, when I saw what was happening in these other states, that that would’ve been Texas. We would’ve been in the same boat. We would’ve been one of those battleground states that they were counting votes in Harris County for three days and Donald Trump would’ve lost the election,” the Republican official said.

Full Article: Texas AG Says Trump Would’ve ‘Lost’ State If It Hadn’t Blocked Mail-in Ballots Applications Being Sent Out

Texas: ‘Die fighting on my feet.’ How Democrats executed a mass walkout that killed the elections bill | Lauren McGaughy/Dallas Morning News

Atop every member’s desk in the Texas House of Representatives sits a small round voting machine. In a slot at the edge of the shiny metal pad fits a key. This key usually stays in the unlocked position, allowing representatives to vote from their seats. When a member is absent, or doesn’t want a deskmate or colleague voting for them, the key is turned, locking the machine. When lawmakers want to be extra sure no votes are cast when they’re gone, they take the key. Late Sunday night, with just a few hours left to pass bills in the 2021 regular legislative session, Rep. Travis Clardy walked to the podium in front of the speaker’s dais and began debate on a controversial elections bill that had torn the chamber in two. Republicans like Clardy wanted to deliver a win for their party and Gov. Greg Abbott, who had called on them to pass a voting bill after the 2020 elections. Democrats said the bill was an overt attempt to discourage voters from going to the polls through scare tactics and new restrictions. Clardy knew the debate wouldn’t be pretty. Earlier discussions on the bill had devolved into ugly partisan slugfests. But as the minority party, Democrats had few options to kill it outright before a key deadline at midnight. Clardy thought, “We ought to be able to get this done.” After ending his opening remarks, Clardy handed the mic over to Rep. Briscoe Cain, the bill’s author, and dipped out of the chamber for some cold pork chops and mashed potatoes.

Full Article: ‘Die fighting on my feet.’ How Democrats executed a mass walkout that killed the Texas elections bill

Texas Democrats block voting bill by abandoning House floor vote | Alexa Ura/The Texas Tribune

The sweeping overhaul of Texas elections and voter access was poised from the beginning of the session to pass into law. It had the backing of Republican leaders in both chambers of the Legislature. It had support from the governor. Democrats who opposed the bill, chiding it as a naked attempt of voter suppression, were simply outnumbered. But on Sunday night, with an hour left for the Legislature to give final approval to the bill, Democrats staged a walkout, preventing a vote on the legislation before a fatal deadline. “Leave the chamber discreetly. Do not go to the gallery. Leave the building,” Grand Prairie state Rep. Chris Turner, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a text message to other Democrats obtained by The Texas Tribune. Senate Bill 7, a Republican priority bill, is an expansive piece of legislation that would alter nearly the entire voting process. It would create new limitations to early voting hours, ratchet up voting-by-mail restrictions and curb local voting options like drive-thru voting. Democrats had argued the bill would make it harder for people of color to vote in Texas. Republicans called the bill an “election integrity” measure — necessary to safeguard Texas elections from fraudulent votes, even though there is virtually no evidence of widespread fraud.

Full Article: Texas Democrats block voting bill by abandoning House floor vote | The Texas Tribune

How the Texas voting bill would have created hurdles for voters of color | Amy Gardner/The Washington Post

Texas Democrats late Sunday headed off passage — at least for now — of one of the most restrictive voting bills in the country, a 67-page measure with a slew of provisions that would have made it harder to cast ballots by mail, given new access to partisan poll watchers and imposed stiff new civil and criminal penalties on election administrators, voters and those who seek to assist them. While Senate Bill 7 would have had wide-ranging effects on voters across the state, it included specific language that critics say would disproportionately affect people of color — particularly those who live in under-resourced and urban communities. House Democrats blocked the bill by walking out of their chamber Sunday night, but Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has said he plans to add the bill to a special session he plans to call later this year. Republican backers of the measure have denied that it is aimed at disenfranchising voters of color. During debate in the House earlier this month, state Rep. Briscoe Cain dubbed it a voting “enhancement” bill, insisting that it was designed to protect “all voters.” The legislation was pushed through in the final hours of the Texas legislative session by Republicans who argued it is necessary to reassure voters their elections are secure, a response to former president Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 White House race was corrupted by fraud. But by all accounts, the 2020 election ran smoothly — and no evidence has emerged of fraud or other irregularities in sizable enough quantities to alter an outcome in Texas or other states.

Full Article: How the Texas voting bill would have created hurdles for voters of color – The Washington Post

Texas: Polling places for voters of color cut under Senate’s version of voting bill | Alexa Ura, Chris Essig and Matthew Dong/The Texas Tribune

The number of Election Day polling places in largely Democratic parts of major Texas counties would fall dramatically under a Republican proposal to change how Texas polling sites are distributed, a Texas Tribune analysis shows. Voting options would be curtailed most in areas with higher shares of voters of color. Relocating polling sites is part of the GOP’s priority voting bill — Senate Bill 7 — as it was passed in the Texas Senate. It would create a new formula for setting polling places in the handful of mostly Democratic counties with a population of 1 million or more. Although the provision was removed from the bill when passed in the House, it remains on the table as a conference committee of lawmakers begins hammering out a final version of the bill behind closed doors. Under that provision, counties would be required to distribute polling places based on the share of registered voters in each state House district within the county. The formula would apply only to the state’s five largest counties — Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar and Travis — and possibly Collin County once new census figures are released later this year. A comparison of the Election Day polling locations that were used for the 2020 general election and what would happen under the Senate proposal shows a starkly different distribution of polling sites in Harris and Tarrant counties that would heavily favor voters living in Republican areas. In Harris County — home to Houston, the state’s biggest city — the formula would mean fewer polling places in 13 of the 24 districts contained in the county, all currently represented by Democrats. Every district held by a Republican would either see a gain in polling places or see no change.

Full Article: Polling places for voters of color cut under Texas Senate’s version of voting bill | The Texas Tribune

Texas: Did a ‘smooth and secure’ 2020 election cost the secretary of state her job? | Taylor Goldenstein and Jeremy Blackman/Houston Chronicle

Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs announced her resignation Friday after Republicans in the Senate declined to confirm her appointment by Gov. Greg Abbott. While Republicans have not publicly expressed any lack of faith in Hughs, Democrats point to her office’s assertion that Texas had a “smooth and secure” election in 2020. “Apparently, that wasn’t what leadership wanted to hear,” said Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, in a tweet on Saturday. The “smooth and secure” line became a highlight of the Democrats’ fight against a slew of Republican voting restrictions in the ongoing legislative session. The Republican-led Senate is backing voting restrictions, saying they are needed to prevent fraud at the polls, despite no evidence of widespread cheating. In pushing against the legislation, Democrats pointed to testimony from one of Hughs’ top deputies, Keith Ingram, director of elections. “In spite of all the circumstances, Texas had an election that was smooth and secure,” Ingram told lawmakers in March, referring to the effect of the pandemic. “Texans can be justifiably proud of the hard work and creativity shown by local county elections officials.”

Full Article: Did a ‘smooth and secure’ 2020 election cost the Texas secretary of state her job?

Texas: Appeal offers hope for woman facing five years for voting illegally | Sam Levine/The Guardian

For the last few years, I’ve been closely following the case of Crystal Mason, a Black woman in Texas who was sentenced to five years in prison for illegally voting in the 2016 election. The case has attracted national attention because of the severity of Mason’s sentence and because Mason has maintained that she had no idea she was ineligible to vote. Mason was ineligible to vote in 2016 because she was on federal supervised release – which is similar to probation – for a federal felony related to tax fraud. Texas, like some other states, prohibits anyone with a felony conviction from voting until they have finished their sentences entirely. But during a brief trial, the officials overseeing Mason’s probation testified that they never explicitly told her she couldn’t vote. Nonetheless, Mason was convicted of illegal voting in 2018 after prosecutors pointed to the fact that she signed a small-print affidavit on her provisional ballot swearing she was eligible to vote (Mason insists she never read it). Last year, a Texas appeals court upheld her sentence, writing “the fact that she did not know she was legally ineligible to vote was irrelevant to her prosecution.” In March, the Texas court of criminal appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, agreed to hear an appeal of that ruling and on Monday, Mason’s lawyers filed their opening brief.

Full Article: Appeal offers hope for Texas woman facing five years for voting illegally | US news | The Guardian

Texas: Just How Strict Will Republicans’ Voting Bill Be? | Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

Texas Republicans on Monday resumed their push to pass a major voting bill with an array of restrictions, moving the bill to a closed-door panel of lawmakers who will hash out the final version of the legislation. But much of the suspense surrounding the panel, known as a conference committee, centers not on whether the legislation will pass the G.O.P.-controlled Legislature, but on what measures it will include when it does. After a late-night scramble of last-minute negotiations among lawmakers last week, it looked as if recently introduced voting options, such as drive-through voting and 24-hour voting, would survive Republicans’ initial attempt to ban them. The version of the bill passed by the State Senate would have prohibited those types of voting, but the House version passed last week made no mention of either provision. However, State Senator Bryan Hughes, the Republican sponsor of the initial bill and one of the committee members who will shape the final version behind closed doors, said in an interview last week that he would like to see the provisions banning drive-through voting and 24-hour voting added back to the final bill. “It makes sense,” Mr. Hughes said, citing internal polling suggesting that Texas voters preferred standardized hours for early voting across the state. “So there’s some predictability and people are confident that the rules are being followed.” The conference committee will meet this week to start crafting a final version of the bill, which would then be sent for a final up-or-down vote in both chambers. The Senate announced its members — made up of four Republicans and one Democrat — on Monday, and the House will make its appointments when the chamber convenes on Tuesday.

Full Article: Just How Strict Will Texas Republicans’ Voting Bill Be? – The New York Times

Texas lawmakers advance restrictive election bill despite Democrats’ all-night fight | Jane C. Timm/NBC

Texas lawmakers advanced a restrictive election bill early Friday as Republicans overcame Democratic efforts to derail the legislation. Democrats had vowed to wage an all-night fight against the bill, which they argue would suppress voting and disenfranchise voters of color. Republicans led by Rep. Briscoe Cain, the chair of the Elections Committee, say the House bill would ensure ballot integrity and protect voters from coercion and fraud. The key vote at 3 a.m. in the Texas House followed hours of debate as Democrats, who had little means of stopping the bill in the GOP-controlled state Capitol, deployed technical challenges and hours of questioning that Rep. Cain appeared unprepared at times to answer. Finally, an agreement was reached between Republicans and Democrats leaving the bill with 20 amendments that significantly watered down some of what advocates called the most problematic aspects of the bill as it passed the key vote 81-64. Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has urged legislators to pass election legislation, which he made a priority for the session ending May 31. The bill was originally proposed as House Bill 6, but Republican lawmakers used a legislative maneuver to ensure that it would advance quickly. Last week, Republicans replaced the text of a different bill, SB 7, a Senate elections bill, with HB 6. A second vote is still required to advance SB 7 out of the House, after which the Senate and House bills are expected to end up in a conference committee, where they would be reconciled by legislators and then sent to Gov. Abbott to sign. The Texas vote came after Florida became the latest U.S. state to enact restrictive voting laws, with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signing the legislation live on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.” It enacts restrictions on voting by mail and at drop boxes, which Democrats and activists warn could suppress voter turnout.

Full Article: Texas lawmakers advance restrictive election bill despite Democrats’ all-night fight

Editorial: How Texas steals your voting rights while you are sleeping | The Houston Chronicle

Ask yourself: If Texas voters are truly clamoring loud and clear, in broad daylight, for the voting restrictions that GOP leaders tell them will protect election security, why do lawmakers insist on passing the legislation in the dead of night? There’s a certain irony, and brazen hypocrisy, in the fact that Republican senators were perfectly comfortable voting past midnight last month on a bill that would ensure Texas voters cannot do the same at the late-night polling places Republicans are trying to ban. Of course, resorting to desperate and unusual methods to pass controversial pet legislation is not novel in Texas. Back in 2016, the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals remarked with obvious skepticism at the “virtually unprecedented” treatment officials gave Texas’ harsh voter ID legislation in 2011 — such as bestowing it with emergency designation, suspending rules to expedite, bypassing regular committee processes in both chambers. The court said the “radical procedural departures” lent credence to accusations of “discriminatory intent.” You don’t say.

Full Article: Editorial: The Big Lie – How Texas steals your voting rights while you are sleeping

Texas Democrats ask for federal review of House Elections Committee after voting bill debacle | Lauren McGaughy/Dallas Morning News

Four Texas Democrats have asked the federal government to monitor the goings-on inside a state House committee after they accused the chairman of trying to avoid public debate on a divisive elections bill. On Thursday, Briscoe Cain, chairman of the House Committee on Elections, ultimately succeeded in getting his nine-member panel to approve Senate Bill 7, a GOP-backed omnibus bill that would tighten voting laws in Texas. Cain, a Deer Park Republican, first brought the bill up for a vote in the morning without any warning, Democrats on his committee complained, denying them the chance to notify the public so a public hearing could be held. But Thursday night, after the Republican majority committee voted down several amendments to the bill, it approved the legislation on a 5-4 vote along partisan lines. No public debate was heard. The incident prompted the committee’s Democrats to send a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and urge the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to review what happened and monitor the committee “if deemed appropriate.” The letter also accused Cain of repeatedly violating rules and “silencing opposing viewpoints.” “The way we have been treated is emblematic of the majority’s view on minority participation in our democracy. The viewpoints of minorities are an unimportant nuisance that is an obstacle to their continued control of Texas,” the signatories wrote, saying female Democrats “have been belittled, talked over, and disrespected.”

Full Article: Democrats ask for federal review of Texas House Elections Committee after voting bill debacle

Texas Republicans Target Voter Access in Cities, but Not Rural Areas | Nick Corasaniti/The New York Times

Voting in the 2020 election presented Zoe Douglas with a difficult choice: As a therapist meeting with patients over Zoom late into the evening, she just wasn’t able to wrap up before polls closed during early voting. Then Harris County introduced 24-hour voting for a single day. At 11 p.m. on the Thursday before the election, Ms. Douglas joined fast-food workers, nurses, construction workers, night owls and other late-shift workers at NRG Arena, one of eight 24-hour voting sites in the county, where more than 10,000 people cast their ballots in a single night. “I can distinctly remember people still in their uniforms — you could tell they just got off of work, or maybe they’re going to work; a very diverse mix,” said Ms. Douglas, 27, a Houston native. Twenty-four-hour voting was one of a host of options Harris County introduced to help residents cast ballots, along with drive-through voting and proactively mailing out ballot applications. The new alternatives, tailored to a diverse work force struggling amid a pandemic in Texas’ largest county, helped increase turnout by nearly 10 percent compared with 2016; nearly 70 percent of registered voters cast ballots, and a task force found that there was no evidence of any fraud.

Full Article: Republicans Target Voter Access in Texas Cities, but Not Rural Areas – The New York Times

In Texas, GOP voting bills zero in on Democratic Houston | Paul J. Weber/Associated Press

The nation’s next big voting battle underway in Texas would outlaw 24-hour polling places, drive-thru voting and make it a crime for elections officials to mail unsolicited absentee ballot applications. Put another way: Everything Houston — the state’s biggest Democratic stronghold — did to expand ballot access last year, when the threat of the coronavirus made voting in-person more hazardous. Amid a GOP-led campaign to tighten voting laws, Republican lawmakers in in Texas have been unusually explicit in zeroing in on Houston and surrounding Harris County as they push to tighten the state’s voting laws. One of the country’s largest and most racially diverse counties, Harris rolled out new ways to vote in 2020 on a scale like nowhere else in Texas. Although there is no evidence of fraud resulting from votes cast from cars or in the dead of night, Republicans are determined to prevent it from happening again. The effort is one of the clearest examples of how the GOP’s nationwide campaign to tighten voting laws can target Democrats, even as they insist the measures are not partisan. With Americans increasingly sorted into liberal urban areas and conservative rural ones, geography can be an effective proxy for partisanship. Proposals tailored to cities or that take population into account are bound to have a greater impact on Democratic voters. That’s likely the case in Georgia, where a new voting law prescribes the number absentee ballot drop boxes per county and uses a formula based on the number of registered voters or early voting sites. Election officials in the Atlanta area have said the change will slash the number of drop boxes available to their voters when compared to 2020 levels.

Full Article: In Texas, GOP voting bills zero in on Democratic Houston