Democrats sue Texas over new voting law. ‘We should be making it easier to vote.’
National and Texas Democrats are suing the state, alleging that a new law disenfranchises young voters ahead of the 2020 election.
Filed by the Texas Democratic Party, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Wednesday in Austin, the federal lawsuit claims that a new state law that requires temporary polling places be open for at least eight hours and on the same days as early voting locations effectively bans “mobile” polling places, in turn, resulting in lower voter turnout.
Previously, local officials could choose to open temporary polling places for only a portion of the voting period, often for reasons such as costs or to reach specific groups, like voters in nursing homes or on college campuses.
The lawsuit specifically points to how the law will affect young, college-aged voters, noting that there will likely be no early voting locations at the University of Texas at Arlington or at Texas Christian University in 2020. The lawsuit also notes that on-campus locations are at risk at Austin Community College and in Brownsville.
In Tarrant County, officials have cited the increased cost of extending hours as a reason for not hosting on-campus locations in the future.
Tarrant County Elections Administrator Heider Garcia previously said that unless extra funds are added to the county’s budget, campus voting locations will tentatively not be at TCU, the University of North Texas medical school or four of the five Tarrant County College campuses in 2020. Only TCC Southeast would have a voting site.
“Tens of thousands of young Texans have relied on these jeopardized on-campus early voting locations when casting their ballots in years past, including students who have limited access to transportation, first-time voters unsure of the process, and students who have jampacked and otherwise inflexible class and work schedules,” the lawsuit reads.
As a result, the lawsuit seeks to stop Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs from enforcing the new law, alleging it violates tenets of the First, Fourteenth and Twenty-Sixth Amendments and “discriminatorily limits equal access to early voting for a significant section of the Texas electorate.”
The new law, which went into effect Sept. 1, was justified by many Republican lawmakers as a way to limit attempts to influence the vote, using temporary voting locations at schools for school bond elections as an example.
Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood, and an author of the bill, referred to the practice as “rolling polling” on the House floor in May, and said it led to “vote harvesting.”
“The flexibility of polling locations was designed to accommodate more voters near their homes and workplaces, but some subdivisions of the state have abused this flexibility, targeting desirable voting populations at the exclusion of others,” Bonnen said at the time.
However, the lawsuit claims that lawmakers were warned of its possible adverse effects, citing witness testimony when the bill, HB 1888, was in committee.
Amendments offered by both House and Senate Democratic lawmakers that would have allowed for the limited use of temporary polling places for rural voters, nursing homes and college students both failed to be added to the bill.
“Our county consistently relies on mobile voting,” Rep. John, Bucy, D-Austin, said on the House floor in May when offering an amendment. “It’s a way to really get out to our small counties that average 300, 400 votes.”
Bucy described his amendment as a “compromise” noting that many smaller or more rural counties rely on the temporary locations when they can’t afford to have full-time polling places.
“Despite the pretextual purposes offered by the bill’s sponsors, HB 1888’s true purpose was to make access to the franchise more difficult, especially for young, college and university student voters, in a direct attempt to suppress the historic youth early voting turnout that Texas saw in 2018 and would otherwise likely see in 2020,” the lawsuit reads.
Tarrant County, long seen as the reddest of Texas’ largest counties, turned blue in 2018 for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke by a slim margin of roughly 4,300 votes over Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
And on local college campuses, more than 11,000 votes were cast last year.
“Republicans know Texas is changing, that’s why they’re trying to change the rules to make it harder for college students, seniors, the disability community, rural Texans, and survivors of natural disasters to cast their ballots,” Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement Wednesday night. “Texas Democrats know we should be making it easier to vote, not harder. Democracy thrives when everyone participates.”
The Texas Secretary of State’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday night.
In a statement Thursday, Marc Rylander, a spokesman for the Texas Attorney General’s Office, said its position “is consistent and clear.”
“Safeguarding the integrity of our elections is a primary function of state government and is essential to preserving our democratic process,” Rylander said. “Our agency is committed to ensuring that our society’s most fundamental and important rights are protected, and baseless attempts to undermine our elections face the full extent of the law.”
This story was originally published October 30, 2019 at 7:24 PM with the headline "Democrats sue Texas over new voting law. ‘We should be making it easier to vote.’."
