State joins national GOP bid to tighten voting laws
AUSTIN, Texas — Republican efforts to tighten voting restrictions across the U.S. are getting under way in Texas, where state GOP leaders helped push unsupported claims of irregularities in last year’s presidential election.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s unveiling last week of sweeping proposed changes to Texas elections puts the state in some ways behind many parts of the country. Legislative voting battles are well under way in Georgia, and Iowa passed a Republicanbacked bill this month that makes it harder to vote early.
Texas already has some of the toughest voting laws in the country — including stringent I.D. requirements — and the rush for more crackdowns worries voting rights groups and Democrats whose ability to block new measures in the Capitol are limited.
New legislation in Texas takes particular aim at Harris County, which includes Houston, where the state went to court last year over efforts to expand mailin voting and ballot access during the pandemic. One proposal would require eligible voters to provide a written doctor’s note certifying a disability to apply for an absentee ballot.
“The last time we had this much paperwork we called it a poll tax,” said Isabel Longoria, Harris County’s elections administrator. “This idea that bureaucracy is somehow going to save us is not based in reality.”
At a news conference last week, Abbott said “election fraud does occur” in Texas but did not name any examples from the November election. Many Republicans have said the new bills are meant to shore up public confidence after Trump and his GOP allies, without evidence, criticized the election as fraudulent.
Other proposals would create deadlines and financial penalties for local election administrators on voter roll maintenance.
Texas was one of only a handful of states that did not expand mailin voting eligibility during the pandemic.
More than 250 bills have been introduced in 43 states that would change how Americans vote, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice, which backs expanded voting access.