Voting Rights

In Texas, the leaked video of the Harris County Republican Party’s training, which was published by the voting rights group Common Cause, recalled a similar episode from the 2010 midterm elections. That year, a Tea Party-affiliated group in Houston known as the King Street Patriots sent poll watchers to downtown polling locations. The flood of the mostly white observers into Black neighborhoods caused friction, and resurfaced not-too-distant memories when racial intimidation at the polls was commonplace in the South. The King Street Patriots would eventually evolve into True the Vote, one of the major national organizations now seeking more voting restrictions. Last year, True the Vote joined several lawsuits alleging fraud in the election (all failed) and led countrywide drives to try to recruit more poll watchers.

Kathay Feng, the national redistricting and representation director at Common Cause, a government watchdog group, warned that voting advocates would be closely monitoring for that kind of discrimination. Much of the America’s population growth over the last decade has come from non-white people. “Our top priority is ensuring that states that are adding congressional seats recognize the population growth fueled by communities of color in the upcoming redistricting process,” Feng said in a statement.

Jay Riestenberg with Common Cause, which advocates for more accessible voting, is particularly concerned about conservative “secret donors” funding the push for more restrictive laws.  “Well, the truth is, we’ll never really know because a lot of these groups do not disclose their spending or where their funding comes from,” Riestenberg said. “But I think we’re well in the area of over $100 million on both sides.”

"SB 90 will limit voters' options when they make a choice in the three methods to cast a ballot. It will create hurdles to every step of voting by mail. It will reduce voters' access to ballot drop boxes. It will add to elections officials' workload and add to the need for voter education. It will make it more difficult for the nonpartisan Election Protection volunteer program to assist voters in understanding their rights in the voting process," Sylvia Albert of Common Cause said in a statement released following the House vote. "Nothing about this bill is 'for the people.' It will only make it harder for 'the people' to have our voices heard and our ballots counted," she added.