Texas messes with voters as gov approves new restrictions

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed new voting restrictions into law Tuesday, a major piece of a nationwide Republican effort to make it harder to vote in the name of combating election fraud.

The law, passed last week by the GOP-controlled Lone Star State legislature, stiffens the state’s already stringent balloting rules. It bans all-day and drive-through polling stations and institutes new ID requirements for mail-in voting.

Democrats have cast the law as an attempt to make it more difficult for people of color to vote. Vice President Kamala Harris described it last week as an “assault on our democracy.” Abbott signed the bill in the city of Tyler. “Election integrity is now law in the state of Texas,” he said to cheers at the ceremonial signing, insisting the measure makes it easier for people to vote, but will “make it harder for cheaters.”

Texas joins at least 17 other states that have added new voting restrictions since the November election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive think tank at NYU Law School.

The Brennan Center filed a lawsuit Friday challenging the Texas law.

The 74-page complaint charged that the law was enacted with a “racially discriminatory intent to discriminate against voters of color, on the basis of race and national origin,” and therefore violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Other states in the Republican campaign to stiffen voting rules include Arizona, Florida and Georgia. The flurry of laws emerged after former President Donald Trump baselessly suggested the election won by President Biden was stolen from him.

“The right to vote is under attack,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted in response to the Texas law, calling for congressional action to protect voting rights.