GOP Voting Payments Aimed At Harris County Reforms Are Suppression, Civil Rights Teams Say – Houston Public Media

Signs direct people to a voting location at the Toyota Center in downtown Houston on November 3, 2020.

More than 60 Texas-based civil rights groups and other groups on Thursday condemned two electoral laws that are advancing in state lawmakers. Critics say they seek reform in Harris County and mean voter suppression.

The coalition, which includes the Texas branches of the ACLU, the NAACP, and the Anti-Defamation League, as well as groups like Planned Parenthood and the AFL-CIO, has urged lawmakers to drop House Bill 6 and Senate Bill 7, which, if they are signed A law would impose criminal penalties related to voting and limit the ability of local officials to expand access to voters.

“These legislative efforts are based on totally unsupported allegations of electoral fraud,” the ADL said in a statement. “Rather than pursuing bills to suppress voters, we urge our elected officials to consider bipartisan ways to safely and securely improve voter access and turnout in Texas.”

In a press release, the ADL highlighted many of the bills it identified as flawed, including the ability to “use partisan poll observers to disrupt the vote,” which it believes is likely an excuse for intimidating the blacks Would serve voters and other color voters. The group also said the bills appeal to people with disabilities and those who speak limited English by threatening “even accidentally violating their oath” those who help such voters with crime.

The two bills have also been publicly criticized by local officials, with Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner likening them to Jim Crow-era laws.

On Thursday, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo urged voters to denounce the bills. Hidalgo made the remarks at the Kingwood Community Center, which she believed was a popular destination for seniors doing drive-thru voting. an option that is now under threat due to GOP proposals.

Drive-through voting was one of many changes Harris County introduced last November to make voting easier in the middle of the pandemic.

SB 7 would make it illegal which, according to Hidalgo, would make voting difficult for many people.

“It is as safe as any other form of voting, and most importantly, voters have benefited enormously from it,” said Hidalgo.

Republican lawmakers have labeled the bills as attempts at “electoral integrity”, claiming that things like drive-through voting were not legal at all.

State Senator Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, who sponsored SB 7, even suggested that district officials themselves had doubts about its legality.

“(Former district clerk Chris Hollins) himself pulled out 9 of the 10 sites on election day because he was concerned about the legality of voting,” Bettencourt said in a text message to a Houston Public Media reporter The clerk thought those votes would not counting. How can the judge turn around and say with a clear conscience that these votes would count now? “

In 2020, more than 127,000 voters used drive-through voting during elections – about 8% of all voters. Harris County has seven transit locations currently in operation in local elections, and Hidalgo said the Kingwood location is almost twice as full as the other locations.

Local officials say drive-through voting and other Harris County reforms were among the reasons behind the record turnout in the 2020 election, even during a pandemic.

Last month, local election officials told Houston Public Media that even after the pandemic ended, they would continue to use drive-through voting as an option to encourage voter turnout.

“It’s a silver lining in a dreadful, dreadful situation we’re going through,” said Isabel Longoria, Harris County election administrator. “It has given us the creativity to think outside the box about how we can serve the voters. Why not use this dire situation to give us some lessons that we can learn to modernize voting in the future?”

Longoria said that SB 7 and HB 6 “are not based on reality”.

“I’d love to see the state invest in a modern era instead of slicing up the things Harris County voters love. It is considering investing in promoting things like drive-through voting in a modern era.” says Longoria.

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