The Republican Party is scared to death of Texas right now. And they should be. For what may be the first time in recent history, it’s possible (not likely, but possible) that Texas could become a swing state in the next presidential election.
Texas, in spite a few Democrat strongholds (Austin, Houston, and SE Texas) has always had a majority Republican leaning. On the plus side, that means we don’t get a lot of election advertisements. On the down side, Texas is a big state, with a lot of electoral college votes.
And there are some very interesting things happening in Texas right now. If you look at the 2012 election map (from Wikipedia), there’s a large swath of blue counties along the border. Hispanic citizens know that the GOP isn’t interested in them or their issues. The other blue spots are the traditional ones, Travis County (Austin), Harris County (Houston), Jefferson County, and Dallas County (Dallas).
Minority voters in Texas have traditionally voted more Democrat than Republican. And, there are more minorities in Texas now than ever before. Over 36% of the population is Hispanic and almost 12% is African American.
Another interesting factor has been added to the mix, one Wendy Davis. She made national headlines earlier this year with her successful filibuster of an anti-abortion law*. She also recently announced that she would be running for governor next year. Rick Perry, our Republican governor for the last 13 years will not be running again (despite no term limits in Texas). So, there’s going to be a huge opening.
I honestly don’t know if Ms. Davis can win. I certainly think it’s possible.
But there is a problem. The new Texas voter ID law.
Abbott [Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott], who’s making his defense of the state’s voter ID law a centerpiece of his campaign for governor, has pursued 66 people on charges of voting irregularities since 2004. Only four cases involved someone illegally casting a ballot at a polling place where a picture ID would have prevented it.
In most cases, voter-fraud violations in Texas have involved mail-in ballots. A few involved felons who aren’t allowed to vote. Some involved an election official engaged in illegal behavior. But none of those would have been stopped by the photo ID requirement. – Dallas News
There are already two major instances of problems with early voting and the new ID law.
The first to appear (at a major level) was Texas District Court Judge Sandra Watts. Who was nearly blocked from in her home courthouse! Because her voter ID (Texas Driver’s License) and her voter registration card names didn’t match exactly, she was told she couldn’t vote. Watch the video, seriously.
In the video Judge Watts states that the law says that an election official will make the determination on eligibility to have the ballot accepted. In other words, if there is ANY difference between the photo ID and the voter registration card, then the person who determines if you vote is some guy who volunteered and has a couple of dozen hours of training.
The potential for bias in this process is staggering. In small communities, it’s easy to know everyone… and for a female with democrat leanings and who is married (or divorced or anyone transgender**), then it will be easy to prevent them from voting. How many women will know to ask for an affidavit if the election official says “you can’t vote”? How many women will go through the process that Judge Watts describes for a provisional ballot?
The second case just floored me. Senator Wendy Davis was ALSO told she couldn’t vote without an affidavit.
Hilariously,Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot will also have to sign an affidavit.
The law doesn’t apply only to women: Davis’ likely opponent in the 2014 governor’s race, Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, says he will have to sign the affidavit also since the name on his driver’s license is Gregory Wayne Abbott, but he is registered to vote as Greg Abbott. — USA Today
Of course, he knows about the law. I’m curious as to see if he is actually forced to sign the affidavits. Indeed, I wonder if a FOIA request could produce them?
While the law does impact everyone, it disproportionately affects women and transgender. Most of the articles I’ve seen state that around 30-35% of women in Texas do not have proper ID to vote in this election.
Let’s look at the numbers. The population of Texas is about 26,000,000. Just over half of which are women, so 13,000,000. One third of the women in Texas will have problems voting. That’s roughly four million people. That’s very rough, not everyone is voting age and some can’t vote. But even looking at this generally, we’re talking about one or two million people who will have some kind of issue when they arrive to vote.
All this to prevent 4 cases of voter fraud since 2004. Sure, there may be more, but if the Texas Attorney General can’t find them, maybe he should be looking in that direction.
Of course, this isn’t about preventing voter fraud. The only people who think voter fraud is a major issue are the rank and file Republicans. The GOP leadership knows that this is a tactic (along with gerrymandering) to reduce the influence of people more likely to vote Democrat in these elections.
As Judge Watts said, voting is a right of all American citizens. Any attempt to prevent that is wrong, no matter how you look at it.
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* Which was subsequently passed after governor Rick Perry called a THIRD special session of the legislature to pass that bill.
** Here’s an article on the status of transgender people in terms of voter ID.
