Texas joins Alabama, Georgia with new election laws | Don’t Miss This

ATLANTA – Texas, along with Georgia and Alabama, was the last state to enact new and more restrictive electoral laws in the fight for control of the party ahead of the likely intense 2022 election cycle.

SB 1 “will preserve the integrity” of the state’s elections and “make it easier to vote and harder to cheat,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott suggested on Twitter Tuesday of the Republican-led bill that comprised several components of the Georgia’s newly enacted SB. reflects 202 and Alabama laws that limit local jurisdictions’ powers to extend voting rights.

“The passage of SB 1 should be a clear call to US Senators that there is an urgent need for federal action to protect freedom of choice,” said Stacey Abrams, former Georgia gubernatorial candidate and founder of Fair Fight Action, a national voting rights organization. “Our US Senators must follow the courageous example of the Texas Democrats in responding to their desperate requests for federal action to save our democracy. Given the upcoming reallocation process in Texas, the US Senate must pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. “

The state’s new law eliminates the early overnight voting hours and drive-through voting that was reportedly popular in more democratic counties. SB 1 sets new identification requirements and rules for postal voting, and imposes criminal penalties on local polling stations that hand out unsolicited applications for postal ballot papers and penalties for those who assist voters with voting.

In a similar way, the Georgian electoral reform law now also requires ID for casting a postal vote and forbids local electoral offices to submit unsolicited postal voting applications. Georgian law makes it a crime to distribute food or drink to waiting voters, a common practice in areas where there have been hours of waiting before voting.

Alabama is also one of nearly 20 Republican-led states to enact new electoral law following the defeat of former Republican President Donald Trump, who mistakenly attributed his loss to electoral fraud.

“After November 3, I was the very first United States Congressman or Senator to publicly declare, in my opinion, that Donald Trump would win the 2020 presidential election if only the legitimate votes of eligible American citizens were counted,” said Congressman Mo Brooks, R-Alabama, in the September 3 tweet.

The state’s new laws are more restrictive, especially when it comes to postal voting. They require the voters to state a valid reason for the postal vote in addition to the signature of two witnesses or a notary on the voting slip; the state also banned roadside voting.

“There are many models out there, even in Republican states like Colorado, that have been voting by mail for years without causing any problems other than voting more Democrats, and that’s what Republicans are scared of,” said Wade Terry, executive director of the Alabama Democratic Party. “You don’t have to look any further than Alabama when they issued COVID exemptions in 2020 where anyone could vote in absentia and what you saw was a record turnout from the Democrats and that’s scary for Republicans so they’ll make it To make it as difficult as possible for people to vote, especially people of skin color and of lower socio-economic status. ”

After the rowdy election year, preceded by a Supreme Court in 2013 that weakened the protections of the Voting Rights Act, several states pushed for changes to the electoral law; According to one of the now repealed provisions of the law, states with a history of racial discrimination had to obtain the approval of the federal government to amend electoral laws. Some of these states were Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas.

Following the passage of the Texas SB 1, Senator Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia, who helped lead efforts to pass the For the People Act – a Democrat-led proposal and update to the proxy law – urged colleagues to do so act immediately a new federal electoral reform law.

“This is only the latest in a series of efforts to shut people out of their own democracy,” Warnock said. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Congress must pass federal voting rights – no matter what. There is no time to lose. “

The US Senate is expected to meet on September 13th and examine the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which was passed in the House of Representatives on August 24th by party lines; Senate Republicans blocked the For the People Act last month. The two federal proposals are generally aimed at expanding access to the electorate and providing uniform national electoral laws that would override the laws of individual states.