Texas GOP launches avalanche of bills to curtail voting
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Texas GOP launches avalanche of bills to curtail voting
Jane C. Timm Mon, March 15, 2021, 5:01 AM
Texas Republicans are rolling out a slew of restrictive election bills, taking particular aim at early voting after Democrats enthusiastically embraced the practice last year.
More than two dozen GOP-sponsored elections bills are under consideration in the Legislature as lawmakers seek to tighten ID requirements and voter rolls, limit early voting and up the penalties for errors. The broad interest — and adirective last month from the governorto prioritize election legislation — makes changes to Texas' election law likely this year.
"Texas has been working on election integrity for a while," said state Sen. Bryan Hughes, a Republican who chairs the State Affairs Committee and introduced a 27-page omnibus bill with several new restrictions and penalties.
"This was already in process, but then the 2020 election was so in the national spotlight, and so many people have questions, so many people have concerns," he said. "I would say that has raised the profile of the issue." Related: Why LBJ's speech on Voting Rights Act still resonates today 
Why LBJ's speech on Voting Rights Act still resonates today
Monday marks the 56th anniversary of LBJ's address to a joint session of Congress talking about the Voting Rights Act, and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin joins Morning Joe to discuss the occasion.
Former President Donald Trump's stolen election lie has convinced 3 of every 4 Republicans that there was widespread voter fraud in last year's election,according to a December Quinnipiac University poll, even though there is broad evidence that it is extremely rare.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office spent 22,000 hours looking for voter fraud and uncovered just 16 cases of false addresses on registration forms, according toThe Houston Chronicle.Nearly 17 million votersare registered in Texas.
And while Texas already had some of the most restrictive laws on the books, that isn't stopping state lawmakers from joining their GOP peers across the country to propose new restrictive bills. Republican legislators in Georgia, Arizona, Florida and Wisconsin — many of whomjoined with Trump to cast doubt on the system— are legislating to restrict the vote, arguing that new measures are needed to restore trust in the system.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, lawmakers have introduced at least 253 restrictive bills in 43 states.
Democrats in Texas — and across the country — have countered with proposals to expand voting access, butwith GOP control in a majority of state legislaturesand in key swing states, the restrictions are increasingly more potent.
"It's important that the system be fair, but it's equally important that people know it's fair, so they'll participate, so they'll vote," said Hughes, who was re-elected in November. He said he wasn't sure whether the presidential race had been stolen.
Many of the provisions would directly address creative ways that Texans voted during the pandemic, like overnight early voting and drive-thru voting, as well as mail-in voting, which Trump particularly protested.
"If you can name an improvement, there's a bill that's been filed to try and eliminate it," said Cinde Weatherby, who works on voting rights issues with the League of Women Voters Texas. The group opposes restrictive voting laws and advocates for modernizing the state's election system.
Early voting is a frequent target of the GOP bills, with proposed legislation targeting where and when voters cast their ballots before Election Day.
Harris, the nation's third-largest county and home to Houston, appears to be a particular target. The county offered drive-thru early voting andovernight early votinglast year for its 4.7 million residents to make voting during the pandemic safer and more accessible.
Two Senate bills propose barring tents and garages for early voting, potentially targeting Harris County's drive-thru early voting, which occurred in tents and garages. Republicans repeatedly sued over drive-thru voting last fall, but thecourts refused to toss outthe more than 127,000 ballots that were cast that way.
Several bills seek to limit early voting to certain hours or to standardize hours across the state, which would expand early voting in smaller counties while limiting it in the largest counties. All would cut early voting hours in urban, Democratic areas.
State Rep. Jared Patterson, a Republican from Denton County, introduced a bill to limit early voting to the hours of 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.
"Momma always said nothing good happens after midnight," he wrote in a tweet. "That includes at polling places."
Other proposed legislation targets mail voting, which lawmakers say needs additional precautions to prevent fraud.
Republicans have proposed a bill that would shrink the period when voters could return mail ballots, while another bill would ask voters to mail back photocopies of their driver's licenses or other qualifying identification with their mail ballots.
Democratic voters in the state were more likely to cast mail ballots in the last election than Republicans,The Texas Tribune reported.
Several bills also seek to ensure that noncitizens stay off the voter rolls and urge election officials to aggressively purge the rolls. And a slew of bills would add or increase penalties for fraud or mistakes made by voters or officials in running elections.
Hughes' election bill, which he said he expects will be the vehicle for any voting legislation coming out of the Senate, would impose civil fines on local officials who don't purge their voter rolls quickly enough — $100 for every voter the secretary of state's office identifies as improperly being on the books.
Several of the bills seem aimed at preventing things that happened elsewhere in the U.S.
State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Republican from Harris County, has sponsored a bill that would prohibit election officials from waiving signature match requirements on mail ballots, which he said hasn't happened in Texas.
"We saw it in Atlanta, Pennsylvania — Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee," he said, pointing to many of the Democratic cities with large populations of Black voters that Trump's allies baselessly accused of orchestrating a large voter fraud campaign to steal the election.
A court rulingwaivedPennsylvania's signature match requirements in ballot verification last year, but the three other cities verified voters who cast mail ballots. In Wisconsin, voters verified their identities by including copies of their photo IDs on the ballot application, and witnesses were required to sign affidavits on that ballot. Georgia and Michigan also verifysignature matches on mail ballots.
Pressed on that, Bettencourt said it didn't matter.
"Just the fact that we saw it in Pennsylvania for sure is enough," he said. "We just don't want election officials going down that path here."
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Name even one new law that would amount to voter suppression.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, lawmakers have introduced at least 253 restrictive bills in 43 states.
That should help eliminate some cheating by the Left. The last election proved the voting system is broken.
A lie.
Those on the left don't have to cheat.... They have ideas to try and move America forward.
All the GOP has are tax breaks for their wealthy donors....... So much for being on the side of the blue collar... Now there is a lie for you Greg.
Keep in mind that all the following quotes are FROM TRUMP'S OWN PEOPLE !!! Not to mention the abject failure of around 60 lawsuits by the Trump campaign, including 2 that went to SCOTUS.
Barr Says No Election Fraud Has Been Found By Federal Authorities
Mail-In Voting Is 'Not Rampant Voter Fraud,' Says Washington's Top Election Official
FBI has not seen evidence of widespread voter fraud, Director Wray tells senators
The Department of Homeland Security breaks from Trump and his baseless claims of election fraud, calling this year's presidential race 'the most secure in American history'
Facts are useful.
Barr actually noted this:
Attorney General William Barr said federal authorities have not uncovered any widespread fraud that might have affected the outcome of the 2020 election, contradicting President Trump.
That's a far cry from "No election fraud".
And I quote:
Just did. Read the article.
Please list the election fraud instances that the DOJ did find. That would have bee3n big news, and you know Trump would have been showing them as examples to the frauds he was claiming. So please do list them.
Is it? Or is it just another way of saying zero? What's the opposite of "widespread"? Would zero qualify as not being "widespread"?
Read it yourself:
Nothing there to read. I am simply asking for factual examples of the fraud that you are claiming Barr insinuated.
On the other hand, in response to TX Lt Gov Dan Patrick's silly promise to pay as much as $25,000 to $1 million for instances of voter fraud, PA Lt Gov Jon Fetterman produced 3 Republicans who were caught and being prosecuted for voting for dead moms and in one instance a son. All attempted to vote twice for Trump.
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Fetterman relentlessly trolls Dan Patrick seeking $1M voter fraud bounty (msn.com)
this is an old article, I believe the count reached 5.
And we the same to you
What an odd comment given we have individuals right here who to this day insist that Trump actually won reelection and that Biden stole the election. Now that is some major league scale ignoring.
People often ignore facts when arguing their positions. But ignoring the repeated recounts, certifications, resolution of lawsuits and (frankly) common sense regarding the election of 2020 is egregious.
Read more carefully. Here is what I wrote:
Note the blue part. I stated that your comment:
... was odd because you focused on left posters and commenters regarding ignoring proof and facts. I then followed up with an example of how that is done routinely and profoundly by individuals on the right.
My comment referred to other individuals as an example of people on the right doing what you stated (and, indeed, at a much worse level).
So my advice back to you is to first comprehend what you are reading before responding.
You know Dennis, there comes a point when one realizes that breaking something down even further is futile. IMO you will simply continue to pretend that you do not comprehend.
Frankly, I think the tactic of faux obtuseness is losing / demeaning; I would be embarrassed to engage in such a tactic.
Remarkable. You truly have no idea what I wrote or how to rebut it (if that is even your intent).
Good move. Knowing problems have happened elsewhere, provide the legislative remedy now to prevent any occurrence in Texas.
No word of course on precisely - or even approximately - how many votes will be suppressed as a result of any regulation.
Well that's not quite true. The issue has been studied, but I'll just link this from the ACLU website.
Anyone can claim to study a thing. Just because you study a thing doesn’t mean your study is any good or that your conclusions are justified - or even relevant.
Let’s assume as true that voter turnout was actually reduced by 3% (noting that the number itself is an estimate offered with no margin for error and no justification for the validity of the estimate). But let’s assume it’s true:
Is the reduction in turnout something that impacted only liberal voters? Or only minority voters? Or even a majority of them? Why in the world would it be that a generally applicable regulation would only impact those particular voters?
Further, how do we know that the restrictions aren’t simply working as intended and weeding out improper votes?
Here's some additional reading that you might want to take advantage of.
It's a long boring piece of writing, but you too will find things like same day registration, inability to ask for any identification other than the 'registrants' saying that yes I'm who I claim to be, and other things which are detrimental to legal American citizen voters and quite helpful to others.
It's an attempt by the Federal Government to eliminate State control over elections, which is a state responsibility per the Constitution, and assume all control over it from a federal perspective even down to local elections.
The GAO is irrelevant?
I know you are smarter than this. I know, you know I'm smarter than this. The bills are targeting areas that where Dems won in the last election. It's just like "redistricting". It's legal manipulation to game the election system. Nothing more, nothing less.
It doesn't eliminate state control, but it does try to restrict control which I don't think will stand up to court challenge.
Not even allowing for state authorities to request identification is assuming control.
Changing election time from a theoretical single day, into a month long process is assuming control.
Not permitting states to cull invalid voter registrations from their voter rolls is assuming control.
There is of course more, but please delve into it when you get a chance.
It's not eye opening, it's terrifying.
Again it isn't going to stand up in court so it is not terrifying. Hyperpartisan hyperventilating is silly. This is nothing more than a political ploy by the Dems to bring attention to the Republican bills restricting voting and raise money. I don't like it, but I'm not losing sleep.
It only matters if it your own vote that is disallowed.
Now cue all of the whineyassed protests that it is unfair to paint the whole gop with what the gop is doing...
Republican legislators are actively screwing you!
Since we should now be able to safely vote on our phones, we already bank and shop that way, why is the damn gop making it harder for people to vote?
Because after Trump voters are sick of their shit!
Welcome to China, Texans.
Reminds me of the coastal defenses on the Marin County peninsula north of the Golden Gate Bridge.
If you see green trees or bushes, there's a gun emplacement "hidden" there.
Like every green awning marks a policeman.
I had a friend that was making a survey for the BLM at hoover dam years ago. the local cane waver and walker pushing brigade were up in arms when they found out the "secret" high ground location of the gun emplacement from WWII was going to be disclosed. wackos.
Back when the National Park Service worked in Marin, they had real NIKE missile launchers that had replaced
WWII artillery batteries and antiaircraft guns.
Because they were intercepting and interpreting Japanese communications, they knew that if the Japs attacked
they would target every green tree or bush hiding a cave or gun mount.
Thanks Army Corps of Engineers.
The same group thought it a great idea to plant eucalyptus trees for the same reasons as well as reclaiming swampy land.
The Oakland Hills Tunnel Fire 1991 was fueled by those highly flammable, oily leaves, destroying 3,500 homes.
Imagine if one Jap shell had landed in the Presidio, we would have lost that base in a few hours.
until last summer if I recall, the last 3-5 largest forest fires in Colorado started off as controlled burns or set by forest rangers, one purposely and one accidentally set by a jilted lover destroying her love letters, during a burn ban in the forests one summer. oops.