Texas house advances sweeping voting restrictions bill

[Celerity]

Bill comes amid nationwide Republican effort to restrict voting
Democrats attempted to block bill by walking out last month

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/27/texas-house-passes-sweeping-voting-restrictions-bill



The Texas house of representatives advanced a sweeping elections bill that would prohibit 24-hour and drive-through voting, block election officials from sending out absentee ballot applications, set new restrictions on providing assistance to voters, impose new identification requirements on mail-in ballots, and give more leeway to partisan poll watchers at voting sites.

The bill – which advanced on a 79-37 mostly party-line vote – is set for final passage on Friday. It will then move to the Texas senate, which has already passed a similar version. The senate can either concur with the house legislation or produce a final version using a conference committee. After that, it will go to the desk of the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, who is likely to swiftly approve it.

The legislation comes amid a nationwide effort by Republicans, who control state government in Texas, to enact legislation that imposes new restrictions on voting access. The Texas bill exploded into the national spotlight after Democrats in the state legislature repeatedly blocked it by walking out of the state legislature, denying Republicans the ability to move forward with legislative business. The standoff, which lasted a little over a month, ended last week when enough Democrats returned to the state capitol to allow the process to move forward.

Many of the provisions in the Texas bill are aimed at Harris county, Texas’ most populous county, and home of Houston, a Democratic stronghold. Harris county election officials took several steps to make voting amid the pandemic easier. Those measures included adopting drive-through and 24-hour voting. The majority of voters who used both processes in 2020 were either Black, Hispanic or Asian, according to an estimate by the Texas Civil Rights Project. About 127,000 people used the process.

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