Texas GOP puts final touches on sweeping voting restrictions
Source: AP
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) Texas Republicans dug in Saturday for a final weekend vote on some of the most restrictive new voting laws in the U.S., putting the last touches on a sweeping bill that would eliminate drive-thru voting, empower partisan poll watchers and limit voting on Sundays, when many Black churchgoers head to the polls.
The changes would need to be approved before midnight on Sunday, when the GOP-controlled Legislature wraps up a session dominated by Republicans muscling through staunchly conservative measures pertaining to guns, abortion and how race can be taught in public schools.
But none have drawn backlash like Senate Bill 7, which Republicans packed with a raft of new voting restrictions that would alter how the country's biggest red state conducts elections. Democrats have virtually no path to stop it from passing, thereby putting Republicans on the brink of a major victory in their nationwide campaign to impose new voting restrictions driven by former President Donald Trumps false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has said he will sign the measure, which Democrats have said they would challenge in court.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/texas-gop-puts-final-touches-on-sweeping-voting-restrictions/ar-AAKw8U3
Maxheader
(4,374 posts)Please shut the lights out...
pdxflyboy
(678 posts)Another $75.00
ananda
(28,925 posts)!!!
Comfortably_Numb
(3,854 posts)bucolic_frolic
(43,567 posts)Turnabout is fair play.
EarlG
(22,004 posts)1) They're basically telling Republican voters that the fix is in theyve got it in the bag. Is that going to increase or decrease their turnout?
2) At the same time, theyre telling Democratic voters that theyre trying to cheat them out of their votes. Is that going to increase or decrease our turnout?
Seems to me like one really great way to get people to go to the polls is by threatening their right to do so and making them angry.
Of course, if it does drive Dem turnout and Dems get victories in Texas in 2022, the Repugs wont believe that the victories could possibly be legitimate because they thought they had rigged the election in their favor.
I suppose thats where the new part of the law that lets them overturn elections apparently on a whim comes in.
lordsummerisle
(4,651 posts)in the coffin of democracy.
Response to lordsummerisle (Reply #6)
hamsterjill This message was self-deleted by its author.
Deminpenn
(15,307 posts)Here in Pennsylvania, there are no polls open at any time before 7AM on election day nor have there ever been. There is no such thing as drive-through voting or polls open 24 hours a day. Until 2020 voters had to have an authorized excuse to vote by absentee ballot like a medical condition or being away from your precinct as a result of work or travel.
LeftInTX
(25,831 posts)But the most egregious part of the bill is that any judge can overthrow any election for no reason.
Election Workers can be charged with a felony for asking a partisan pollwatcher to leave, no matter what the poll watcher is doing.
People can't drive voters to the polls unless they are related to them.
Polls were not open 24/7 in Bexar County because our elections admin saw it as a logistic nightmare...Polls were open until 10 and by 9 pm no one was showing up. We also did not have drive in here either...
But this bill will prevent voting advocates from obtaining official vote by mail applications. The parties can print their own, but voters might be skeptical that it is a real application. As a precinct chair, I hand out official vote by mail applications. All VBM applications must have a SS# or state ID # (I really don't have a problem with this, as long as they don't require a copy of the ID)
They also cut one hour off of "souls to the polls"...(The hour after church has been cut) This ruins souls to the polls. Maybe they can make accommodations by serving lunch and then going to the polls. Maybe lunch is another reason to get parishioners to stick around!
They left one part of the bill on the floor: The closing of polling sites in counties over 1 million.
LetMyPeopleVote
(146,029 posts)The Texas House and Senate came up with a new voter suppression bill. Normally when you reconcile a bill in committee, you either accept or delete provisions in either bill. Here the GOP came up with a brand new bill that has a number of new provisions that were not in either of the prior Senate or House bill. The Texas Democrats have been using points of order to kill some nasty GOP bills. For example this young man has been very effective in using points of order
Link to tweet
Tomorrow the House Democrats have identified a good number of inappropriate provisions and will be raising a ton of points of order
Link to tweet
This will be fun to watch
SouthBayDem
(32,084 posts)The bill, S.B. 7, includes several controversial provisions that critics say would disproportionately affect poor and minority voters. It also specifically targets voting practices employed this past year in Harris County, which includes Houston, by banning drive-through voting and 24-hour voting. Those practices were used by 140,000 voters in 2020.
S.B. 7 makes it a state jail felony for local officials to attempt to send mail-in ballot applications to voters who did not request them, a practice Harris County employed in 2020. The bill also limits early voting and implements more restrictions on absentee voting, including adding more identification requirements for those who wish to vote-by-mail.
President Biden condemned the bill in a statement, calling it "part of an assault on democracy that we've seen far too often this yearand often disproportionately targeting Black and Brown Americans."
Full: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-voting-restriction-bill-republicans/