Democracy wins

Despite new fears and obstacles, Texas voters are showing up in record numbers.

In the land of voter suppression, the determined masses of masked-up voters snaking into polling places and dropping off mail ballots during the first week of early voting can seem more like defiant rebels than dutiful citizens exercising their sacred right to vote.

Rebels, we salute you. Count us among the many to applaud your peaceful, patriotic and long-overdue defiance against the undemocratic forces in Texas that have clung to power by obstruction, intimidation, gerrymandering and other tactics intended to keep Texas’ voter turnout among the lowest in the country

Texas turnout of eligible voters in the 2016 presidential election was 51.4 percent, compared with a national average of 60.1 percent — a discrepancy largely attributable to the most restrictive voting laws in the nation.

Yet, in just seven days of early voting, Harris County was on pace Monday to reach half of its entire turnout for the 2016 election, according to the county clerk.

This is what democracy looks like, in case we forgot.

And it feels like victory — nomatter which candidates win on Nov. 3. Yes, a victory for democracy and against those who have sought to thwart it for decades. In their backroom strategy sessions and courtroom filings, GOP power brokers have followed a corrosive philosophy articulated so well by right-wing strategist Paul Weyrich at a 1980 meeting in Dallas where he chided religious conservatives for their support of “good government.”

“They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote,” Weyrich said. “… Asamatter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

But the usual tricks aren’t working this time. Texas is leading the country in ballots cast so far, with more than 4 million votes counted as of Sunday, according to the U.S. Elections Project, a collection of voting statistics compiled by University of Florida professor Michael McDonald.

“Best turnout we’ve had ever. I mean ever,” Republican precinct chair Scott Robbins of Montgomery County told the Chronicle news team Thursday as reporters scrambled to cover record turnout in the Houston suburbs.

Voters have showed up in the face of new fears and obstacles laid determinedly in their path. Certainly, this is a highstakes election where passions and concerns in all corners are heightened amid a global pandemic, flailing economy and epic contest between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.

Still, we praise the public officials who have done everything possible to expand access to the polls so that more Texans than ever canmake their voices heard.

Interim Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins is top of our list, along with all the workers and others who have helped his office prepare for a swarm of voters.

Hollins was appointed after Diane Trautman stepped down in May, citing health concerns amid the pandemic. The office won approval from county commissioners for an aggressive push to make voting easier in 2020 than it had been in recent years, when long lines and slow reporting of results plagued the clerk’s office.

When COVID-19 complicated the challenge, Hollins was ready with solutions. Voting hours were expanded, early voting locations added, training for workers increased, and the clerk’s office staffed up like never before, hiring thousands of extra workers, totaling up to 12,000 for roughly 800 polling sites, Hollins told the editorial board.

During early voting, polls are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day except Sundays, when polls are open noon to 7 p.m. Even that wasn’t enough, Hollins said, because some voters work those hours, so from Oct. 27-29, polls will be open to at least 10 p.m., with eight locations open 24 hours on Thursday, Oct. 29.

Hollins also added drive-thru voting, which has so far survived a court challenge by Republicans while two of his other smart initiatives were blocked by litigation: sending vote-by-mail applications to every registered voter in the county and expanding the number of locations where voters could drop off absentee ballots rather than take chances with the post office.

“Each of these lawsuits is intended to do two things: to take voting rights away from Americans and Texans, and to confuse voters,” Hollins said. “The more confused a voter is, the less likely he or she is to exercise the constitutional right to vote. All of this is just voter suppression.”

Gov. Greg Abbott deserves credit for expanding early voting statewide from two weeks to three, but he took a step back when he allowed only one ballot dropoff location for each county, including Harris, home to 2.4million registered voters.

Hollins fought such efforts at every turn. Judging by the record turnout, his office appears to be winning. So is democracy.

Hollins may bemissed come 2021, when the county plans to swear in a new clerk and transfer authority over elections to a new position, created by Harris County Commissioners Court: county elections administrator.

Whoever comes next will have a fine role model in Hollins. This is what leadership looks like, in case we forgot.