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Tag: texas voter suppression
'I've Never Missed A Vote':Texas Voter Suppression Laws Screws Over WW2 Veteran Voter

'I've Never Missed A Vote':Texas Voter Suppression Laws Screws Over WW2 Veteran Voter

Here’s a headline Texas Republicans probably weren’t looking for when they passed SB1, their voter suppression law: "‘I’ve never missed a vote’: 95-year-old World War II Veteran says his mail-in ballot application has been denied twice due to new requirements.”

“I’ve been voting many, many years and I’ve never missed a vote,” Kenneth Thompson told local news reporter Taisha Walker. He’s been voting so long he paid a poll tax. (The official kind that’s now been replaced with endless and sometimes costly hoops to jump through.) But Texas Republicans have jeopardized Thompson’s unbroken record.

Voters asking for a mail ballot are now required to include a partial Social Security number or driver’s license number on the ballot application—and that number has to match what’s on their registration record. But when Kenneth Thompson registered to vote in the 1940s, voter registrations did not include those numbers, so he literally cannot provide the information required. There is no number that would match his voter registration. As a result, his ballot application was denied twice, even after his daughter contacted both county and state officials to try to get the issue resolved.

“We know it’s a new law, we’re happy to correct it,” Thompson’s daughter, Delinda Holland, said. “He’s a law-abiding citizen. He doesn’t want to miss voting, and yet, there’s no mechanism to add that driver’s license to your record.”

Instead, Holland finally re-registered her father—after he’d been voting for more than seven decades—to ensure that he’d be eligible to vote. He says if he doesn’t get a mail ballot, he will vote in person, but he’s concerned about people for whom that’s not an option.

”I can get out and move around and go to a regular polling place, but these people, lots of people just can’t.”

Elderly white men who served in World War II are not who Texas Republicans were aiming to disenfranchise with this law. But the fact that they cast a net broad enough to catch at least one such person shows how many voters are going to run into problems—problems that in the case of people in groups that lean Democratic are fully intentional. A new analysis by Mother Jones showed that a Georgia law similarly aimed at making it more difficult to vote worked as planned, leading to dramatic increases in the number of mail ballot applications and mail ballots rejected in the state’s 2021 municipal elections. Texas appears to be on track for the same stellar results.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Texas state Rep. Matt Krause

VIDEO: Texas Republicans Admit Voting Curbs Are All About Winning

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

A handful of Republican state lawmakers in Texas were caught on camera saying the voter suppression bill the GOP is trying to pass in the Lone Star State is intended to keep Republicans in power.

The footage was captured by Lauren Windsor, a progressive activist who posed as a supporter of Donald Trump as she spoke about the legislation to the lawmakers.

"We just want to make sure that Texas stays red and it doesn't become like Georgia," state Rep. Matt Krause told Windsor. President Joe Biden carried Georgia in 2020, becoming the first Democratic presidential nominee since 1992 to carry the state. Trump then tried to coerce Republican election officials in the state to "find" the exact number of votes he'd need to be declared the winner.

State Rep. Justin Holland made similar comments, responding to Windsor's prompt, "We had to get engaged in the fight to make sure that Democrats don't take over the state, and so we just want to make sure that y'all get the election bill passed." Holland responded, "That's what we're here for. Yep... they're gonna lose seats, they're not gonna gain seats next time. They're not gonna take over. They're gonna actually erode. And so we're going to make sure we come back with more Republicans next time."

Texas has seen Democratic candidates picking up seats in both Congress and the state Legislature over the last decade.

Publicly, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has claimed that the bill, which limits early voting, makes it harder to vote by mail, and gives more authority to poll watchers, is about "election integrity."

"There's really one thing all of us can and should agree upon, and that is we must have trust and confidence in our elections," Abbott said in March. "One way to do that is to make sure that we reduce the potential for voter fraud in our elections."

However, Democratic state legislators, a number of whom have left the state to deny Republicans a quorum in the Legislature to vote on the bill, say the newly released video is more proof that the bill is about keeping Republicans in power.

"It was never about 'election integrity,'" Democratic state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, one of the Democratic lawmakers who left the state to keep the bill from coming to a vote, tweeted in response to the video. "It was about an unpopular party, in an increasingly diverse Texas, doing whatever it takes to hold onto power - even if it means sacrificing our democracy. Texans deserve better."

Democratic state Rep. Julie Johnson tweeted, "This bill we are fighting in #Texas is not about 'election integrity. It never really was. Texas Republicans have openly admitted they only want to retain power."

Abbott had called a special session of the Legislature to pass the bill, along with a list of other right-wing bills that would do everything from prohibiting transgender youth from playing on school sports teams of their gender to limiting access to abortion. That session ended on Friday without any bills being passed, and Abbott called a second special session that began on Saturday.

But the Democratic state lawmakers haven't returned to allow a quorum for voting and have filed a lawsuit against Republican leaders in Texas who are trying to compel them to come back, while also telling Congress to pass federal voting rights bills to combat efforts to restrict voting access such as the ones Texas Republicans are attempting to pass.

"This is not about election integrity, it's to keep anyone from voting that isn't a Republican," Democratic state Rep. Jarvis Johnson tweeted. "They just want to keep the state red. There is no shame."

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatens Texas Democrats.

Abbott Threatens Texas Lawmakers With Arrest When They Return

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Texas Democrats left the state on Monday as a last stand for voting rights, preventing the state House from having the quorum it needs for Republicans to pass a voter suppression bill, along with an attack on transgender students, during a special session of the legislature. The Democrats—at least 51 of them—said they'll stay out of Texas until the special session ends August 6. But they need Congress to act.

Gov. Greg Abbott has threatened that "As soon as they come back in the state of Texas, they will be arrested, they will be cabined inside the Texas Capitol until they get their job done." Abbott can call another special session to get the Republican legislation passed. Ultimately, Texas Republicans have the power to force just about any law through that they want, and right now, they want to make it hard for Black and brown people to vote.

"Our message to Congress," said state Rep. Chris Turner, is that "We need them to act now."

In every public statement he's made, Abbott has painted the Democrats as taking a "taxpayer-paid junket" using "cushy private planes." The Democrats, many of whom have left children behind, are pushing back on that to highlight their urgent message to Congress.

"This is not a vacation," said state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer. "This is not a junket. I don't want a single U.S. senator to go home for the August recess thinking that everything is completely fine with voting rights in America. We're here to present the case that it is not." (Pssst … Sen. Manchin, Sen. Sinema, I think he's talking to you.)

Senate Democrats including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sens. Cory Booker, Alex Padilla, and Kirsten Gillibrand are meeting with the Texans. Vice President Kamala Harris praised their "extraordinary courage and commitment."

"I do believe that fighting for the right to vote is as American as apple pie. It is so fundamental to fighting for the principles of our democracy," said Harris.

Abbott is not the only Republican to slam the Democrats for blocking a quorum. "It's not very Texan," according to Sen. John Cornyn. "You stay and you fight."

Well, they're not done fighting. They just took the fight somewhere else, rather than staying in a 100 percent unwinnable fight. As for the other senator from Texas ...

Texas Democrats protesting voter suppression in the state.

Texas Democrats Leave State To Thwart Passage Of Voter Suppression Bills

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Democrats are going to have nothing to do with the special session Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has called. That's because he's not trying to deal with critical issues like COVID-19 or fixing the state's broken and fatal electrical grid, but to "to prioritize 11 issues that largely appeal to conservatives who wanted more out of the regular session." That includes the new voting restriction bills blocked previously by Democrats, as well as banning critical race theory in education, and transgender student athletes from playing sports.

At least 58 Texas House Democrats have left the state to deny a quorum and block these bills, particularly the voting restrictions. "The majority of the members plan to fly to Washington, D.C., on two private jets chartered for the occasion and use the time there to rally support for federal voting legislation," a source told NBC. Others plan to go to D.C. as well, by other means.

What are they going to do in D.C. to convince lawmakers there to deal with voter suppression? "Literally anything," NBC reports. [EDITOR'S UPDATE: On Monday evening the Texas lawmakers arrived at Dulles International Airport near the nation's capital.]

The two new voter restriction bills Texas Republicans are bringing would, among other things: Ban drive-thru early voting; ban 24-hour early voting locations by setting limits of 6 AM to either 9 or 10 PM; add new voter ID requirements for absentee voting; prohibit local officials from sending unsolicited absentee ballot applications to voters or using public funds to help third parties to do so; enable partisan "poll watchers" to potentially harass and intimidate voters while limiting their oversight by election officials by imposing criminal penalties for getting in their way. They debated the bills in hearings on Saturday, and on Sunday the Senate committee voted strictly on party lines 6-3 to pass the bill out to reach the floor Tuesday. The House followed suit with overnight hearings, passing their bill out on a party-line 9-5 vote.

The voter suppression they intend to impose on the state was reflected in these hearings, which were supposed to be open to public testimony.

"Early this morning, Republicans voted to advance a bill to ban 24-hour voting, following an overnight committee hearing that lasted nearly 24 hours," Democratic state Rep. Chris Turner said in a statement Sunday. "You just can't make this up: Republicans are passing anti-voter legislation overnight to prohibit Texans from casting a ballot overnight."

One of the people who was able to testify to the Senate was former Rep. Beto O'Rourke. "This is already the toughest state in which to vote, bar none," O'Rourke said to senators. "You are now proposing a set of restrictions in this elections bill that is going to make it that much harder for people to participate." That's certainly their plan. O'Rourke is egging Democrats on, saying he hopes that they'll "go to DC and sit on the steps of the Capitol, forcing their federal counterparts to walk by them, realizing they haven't done enough to help." Sit-ins in the offices of Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema wouldn't be amiss, either.