Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Republican lawmakers are pushing several bills that would strip voting rights from Texans and return the state to the segregationist, Jim Crow era of the 1950s.
Their anti-democracy plans are part of a nationwide push by the GOP to suppress the votes of American citizens. Voter suppression has long been part of the Republican playbook, but in 2021 they are going to unprecedented extremes.
The Texas Legislature must stop this effort that makes a mockery of our democracy. Protect Texans’ voting rights now. Placing insurmountable barriers between voters and the ballot box is un-Texan and un-American.
Gov. Abbott has long been an opponent of voting rights. As Texas Attorney General, Abbott once sent armed thugs to intimidate voter advocates. They even peeked into the bathroom window of an elderly African-American woman in an effort to scare her.
Among the GOP voter suppression efforts is a proposal to require applicants for mail ballots with health difficulties to provide a doctor’s note or other proof of their illness. That amounts to a poll tax – forcing people to spend money in order to vote – and it violates federal health privacy laws.
The GOP also wants to ban extended voting hours, limit voting machines in urban areas and create long delays and lines that make it harder for voters who cannot spend hours and hours away from their jobs and families. They have plans to regularly purge voter rolls, efforts that in the past have erased the voter registrations of qualified voters who don’t find out they’ve been purged until they try to vote.
WE MUST ACT NOW.
Sign our petition to send a demand letter to lawmakers in the Texas Legislature to fight for our right to vote and end the Republican effort to suppress the votes of Texans.
