Washington Post: Video shows Texas GOP official seeking ‘army’ of volunteers to monitor polls in mostly Black and Hispanic Houston precincts

04.8.2021 / By Teo Armus and Derek Hawkins
Washington Post: Video shows Texas GOP official seeking ‘army’ of volunteers to monitor polls in mostly Black and Hispanic Houston precincts

Now the government accountability group Common Cause Texas — which published the footage Thursday — is raising the alarm that such an effort could instead serve to intimidate and suppress voters in metro Houston. “It’s very clear that we’re talking about recruiting people from the predominantly Anglo parts of town to go to Black and Brown neighborhoods,” Anthony Gutierrez, the group’s executive director, told The Washington Post. “This is a role that’s supposed to do nothing but stand at a poll site and observe,” he added. So “why is he suggesting someone needs to be ‘courageous’?” Gutierrez asked. ... Gutierrez said the video highlights his concerns with the state Senate’s voting bill. He said the “brigade” of poll watchers would effectively be empowered to intimidate the most vulnerable voters.

In a leaked video of a recent presentation, a man who identifies himself as a GOP official in Harris County, Tex., says the party needs 10,000 Republicans for an “election integrity brigade” in Houston.

Then he pulls up a map of the area’s voting precincts and points to Houston’s dense, racially diverse urban core, saying the party specifically needed volunteers with “the confidence and courage to come down here,” adding, “this is where the fraud is occurring.”

The official cites widespread vote fraud, which has not been documented in Texas, as driving the need for an “army” of poll watchers to monitor voters at every precinct in the county.

Now the government accountability group Common Cause Texas — which published the footage Thursday — is raising the alarm that such an effort could instead serve to intimidate and suppress voters in metro Houston.

“It’s very clear that we’re talking about recruiting people from the predominantly Anglo parts of town to go to Black and Brown neighborhoods,” Anthony Gutierrez, the group’s executive director, told The Washington Post.

“This is a role that’s supposed to do nothing but stand at a poll site and observe,” he added. So “why is he suggesting someone needs to be ‘courageous’?” Gutierrez asked. …

Gutierrez said the video highlights his concerns with the state Senate’s voting bill. He said the “brigade” of poll watchers would effectively be empowered to intimidate the most vulnerable voters.

For instance, he said, an untrained, skeptical poll watcher might see someone accompanying a relative who is blind, or a relative who doesn’t speak English, to the ballot box and then interpret the situation as an example of voter fraud and begin filming or taking photos.

The bill lacks any teeth to ensure that footage in fact goes to the Texas secretary of state, he said, and so it could then end up online, where trolls could attack someone merely for voting, or trying to help someone else do the same, in a perfectly legal way.

See More: Abuse of PowerVoting RightsVoting & Elections