The electoral overhaul in Texas comes as Republicans try to seize power in a rapidly changing state, where people of color make up virtually all of the population growth, and that growth is concentrated in the big cities that tend to vote democratically.
“It makes it easier and never easier for anyone to vote. However, it also ensures that it is harder than ever to cheat at the polls,” Abbott said in an act in which he signed the law.
Opponents of Senate Bill 1 said its provisions would disproportionately restrict access to voting for marginalized voters, particularly people of color and people with disabilities.
The new law targets Harris County, home of Houston, which last year offered automatic voting and 24-hour early voting. The bill restricts the hours counties can offer early voting between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., and bans tactics like those done by Harris County in 2020, when there was a garage at Toyota Center (the home of the Houston Rockets of the NBA). the premises used as a place where residents could vote from their vehicles.
The bill also prevents counties from sending unsolicited mail voting requests, even to those over the age of 65 and therefore automatically qualify to vote by mail. It also sets new rules on postal voting, increases protection for observers in favor of polls, and sets new limits on those who help voters, including the disabled, vote.
Marc Elias, a leading attorney for the Democratic election, has already said Texas law will be challenged in the courts.
“SB 1 is a frightening undemocratic effort by Texas Republicans to build barriers to the vote of people who believe they will not support them,” Eric Holder, then U.S. Attorney General Barack Obama, said in a statement. “What makes this bill and other similar ones that Republicans are pushing across the country even more anti-American is that Republicans are using the ‘Big Lie’ about the 2020 election as a pretext to support them. The reality “These bills have nothing to do with integrity or electoral security, but are discriminatory measures that make it difficult for everyone to vote. These bills will have a disproportionate impact on communities of color.”
Instead, they seek action in Congress. In Texas, Democratic lawmakers in the State House left Austin and traveled to Washington to urge Congress to pass new election protections.
However, measures to extend voting rights are stalled on Capitol Hill, with Senate Democrats unable to break the 60-vote threshold and unable to remove it, due to party opposition.
“I was born into segregation,” Democratic State Representative Garnet Coleman said ahead of Tuesday’s House vote to pass the bill. “We believe we have moved forward and suddenly there is a new law that takes us back in time.”
Texas Republicans, meanwhile, said their election reforms were aimed at making voting easier and harder to deceive – an abstention used by Republican lawmakers, though no evidence of widespread fraud in Texas.
“Common sense reforms in this legislation strengthen our confidence in the electoral process, from voter registration to the final counting of ballot boxes. Texans can cast their votes with confidence knowing that they will be accurately accounted for and reported. said Republican Sen. Bryan Hughes, author of the provision.