Texas Elections are Safe

Praise the Lord and the Texas Legislature. Finally, after all-night debates, emergency legislative sessions, walkouts, marches and desperate escapes to Washington D.C., lawmakers have sent a bill to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk that will restore the integrity we never knew we lost in our elections here in the Great State of Texas. When Senate Bill 1 becomes law, we will breathe a sigh of relief that Texas elections — where voter fraud makes up a menacing .000185 percent of votes cast — will finally be deemed safe for the purposes of Republican campaign speeches, TV spots and glossy mailers. Join us, Texans, in rejoicing. Watch the pendulum, feel your eyes growing heavy and repeat after us: Our elections are safe. We can no longer vote in a drive-thru polling place — not even during a global pandemic. Our elections are safe. We get one more hour of early voting on weekdays and we can fix problems with absentee ballots but we can no longer vote at midnight after the late shift, no matter how popular that option was for voters of color. From the Editorial Board OPINION Editorial: The Cajun Navy was there for Houston. Now it's... By The Editorial Board OPINION Editorial: You want tyranny? A war hero died because... By The Editorial Board OPINION Editorial: Four years later, has Houston learned anything... By The Editorial Board OPINION Thumbs: Stripping dad reveals naked truth on masks at... By The Editorial Board OPINION Editorial: Did you hear? 13 American soldiers died in... By The Editorial Board OPINION Editorial: Abbott's latest border grandstanding could... By The Editorial Board OPINION Editorial: Step away from the livestock meds. The Pfizer... By The Editorial Board OPINION Editorial: A final plea to Republicans on Texas voting... By The Editorial Board OPINION Editorial: Don't forget Paris ISD, the tiny Texas school... By The Editorial Board OPINION Editorial: How Harris County prosecutors are trying to... By The Editorial Board Our elections are safe. While five states conduct entire elections by mail, a county official in Texas who so much as mails residents applications to vote by mail, with instructions on determining whether they’re eligible, can now be charged with a state jail felony. Our elections are safe. Partisan poll watchers, with a history of harassing behavior against people of color, will have “free movement” within a polling place, although they must stop short of accompanying us into the voting booth. If they feel a poll worker has blocked their view, they can pursue criminal charges. Disruptive watchers, thankfully, can be removed if they violate the law and won’t get one freebie offense allowed by a previous version of the bill. Our elections are safe. People with felony records who make an honest mistake of voting before their right to cast a ballot is restored under Texas law can still be prosecuted for fraud. A bill by House Republicans to clarify that such mistakes aren’t actually fraud was stripped at the last-minute by state Sen. Bryan Hughes. Our elections are safe. People who help the elderly or disabled at the polls must, under threat of criminal penalty, fill out paperwork describing their relationship to the person. They must, under penalty of perjury, swear to limit their assistance to such things as reading the ballot but not answering the voter’s questions. Our elections are safe. Texas will conduct monthly citizenship checks to make sure non-citizens aren’t trying to vote. Our elections are safe. Texas is still one of only around 10 states that doesn’t allow voters to register online. Our elections are safe. Texas still requires an “excuse” to vote by mail, even though nearly three dozen states do not. Our elections are safe. While more than 20 states allow voters to register the same day as they vote, Texas is still among those that cut off registration the earliest: 30 days before Election Day. Our elections are safe. Texas is still a state where voting is a threat to be managed, not a right to protect. Our elections are safe. Texas is a state where voting hurdles prove virtue and voting conveniences suggest malfeasance. Our elections are safe. Texas is a state where it’s easier to buy a gun than to vote. Our elections are safe. They must be. Texas Republican lawmakers wouldn’t have spent all this time, energy and taxpayer money on emergency legislative sessions just to pad their Republican primary campaign ads, right? They couldn’t be up to old tricks in a state that federal courts have caught repeatedly violating the constitutional rights of minority voters, including in 1927. And in 1944. And in 1971. And in 2014. And in 2017. And in every single redistricting cycle since 1970. Our elections are safe, and they’ll stay that way — at least until next session when Republican lawmakers will find another very good, if unsubstantiated, reason to put us through this process of restricting voter access. All. Over. Again.