Don’t let Texas become the next Georgia. We don’t need more restrictions on voting

Before Texas becomes Georgia, let’s lower the temperature on the debate over election changes moving through the Legislature.

Make no mistake, the bill the Senate passed this month and a similar measure awaiting debate in the House are flawed and unnecessary. They purport to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, significant voter fraud. They are borne of anger over something that did not happen, supposed cheating that deprived President Donald Trump of a second term.

Texas Republican leaders are twisting themselves in knots by saying that the state’s 2020 elections, in which they held onto power, were accurate and secure but that the problem of voter fraud somehow demands extensive state intervention.

Assertions that voter fraud doesn’t exist are silly. But in Texas, it’s a small-scale problem at local levels. Our last two attorneys general have been looking for it for more than a decade, and they haven’t found much.

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2021 VOTER GUIDE

Learn about the candidates in Fort Worth and Arlington, for the U.S. House in District 6 and the Tarrant Regional Water District.

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But the proposed bills are not a return to Jim Crow days, either. Opponents are overstating their case to the point that it discredits their valid criticisms of the bill. Many of the tools the measures target, such as drive-through voting, were adaptations to the coronavirus pandemic. Was Texas a voting hellscape before then?

The problem with the bills is that they would interfere with local control that lets officials closest to voters find ways to ensure citizens can exercise their voting rights. And they would do so on the incorrect assumption that big urban centers produce thousands of fraudulent votes, or might.

Sen. Bryan Hughes, the Mineola Republican behind his chamber’s legislation, says the goal is “standardizing” election procedures. But as long as basic rules of access and security are met, why should a county with a million or more voters, such as Tarrant, be forced to operate its elections the same way as one with a fraction of that number of citizens to serve?

Under Hughes’ bill, Austin would dictate procedures down to how voting locations and machines must be distributed. In Tarrant County, we’ve now had several elections with “voting centers” at which any voter can cast a ballot. Elections officials know which locations draw the most voters, but the Senate would demand that locations and machines be distributed uniformly among Texas House districts.

The clear target is large, mostly Democratic counties. Of everything in the bills, this provision is most likely to cause long lines and possibly deter voters. It’s unacceptable.

Another provision aimed at urban counties (particularly Harris) would dictate early-voting hours in every nook and cranny of Texas. Counties could not keep polls open more than 12 hours a day, falling between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m.

In practice, most polling places are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays. Harris County experimented with late hours and even 24-hour early voting. Again, if standards of staffing polling places, identifying voters and securing ballots are met, what difference does it make if it’s 3 p.m. or 3 a.m.? Leave it up to local officials.

Another measure that has drawn scrutiny would ban election officials from distributing applications for mail-in ballots. Absentee ballots must be handled with care; the rare fraud that does occur often involves “harvesting” operations.

But the applications themselves are harmless. There’s a process in place to verify identity and ensure that the voter who receives a mail ballot is the same person who returns it.

Texas Republicans seem determined to take away conveniences that don’t threaten the sanctity of elections. One bill moving in the House would bar drop-off locations for mail-in ballots. It’s sensible to disallow unattended boxes, but if a county elections office can staff a location and ensure the chain of custody for a ballot, what harm is there in giving voters more options?

Restrictions on voting often stem from the idea, held by Republicans and Democrats alike, that the more people who vote, the worse it is for the GOP. But Daron Shaw, a University of Texas at Austin professor and expert in voter turnout, has thoroughly debunked that in his research. And 2020 should have proved to Texas Republicans that higher turnout isn’t necessarily harmful to their cause.

Bills like the one the Senate passed will make it harder to vote — not as difficult as the critics contend, but enough to matter. It’s unfortunate that the “Jim Crow 2.0” narrative has taken hold, to the point that businesses are threatening to punish Texas as they did Georgia for its new law. But Republicans brought that upon our state by proposing unnecessary changes.

Lawmakers should go back to the drawing board, or better yet, let trusted local elections officials do their jobs.