On Thursday October 1st, 2020, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a proclamation that will limit the number of locations where eligible voters can send mail-in ballots to one per county regardless of the county size. Starting on Friday, this proclamation is aimed to enhance the “ballot security protocol” that the Texas Governor is pushing for. Gov. Abbott follows this up with stating that “the State of Texas has a duty to voters to maintain the integrity of our elections. As we work to preserve Texan’s ability to vote during the COVID-19 pandemic, we must take extra care to strengthen ballot security protocols throughout the state. These enhanced security protocols will ensure greater transparency and will help stop attempts at illegal voting.” The latter half of the Governor’s statements refers directly to President Trump’s claims of illegal/manipulated votes due to mail-in ballots. Therefore, Abbott claims that this bill will not only help in ensuring safety in voting during the pandemic but also preserve the integrity of the votes.
But many county officials seem to disagree with the Governor’s claims. Many critics claim that this proclamation will hurt “populous cities” where Democrats are more prominent, with most calling this as “a blatant voter suppression tactic.” Critics claimed that due to Texan Republicans on the verge of losing, Governor Abbott, a Republican, is “trying to adjust rules last minute” in order to give Republicans more of an advantage. Due to this bill enforcing only one ballot drop-off site for each country regardless of county size, people in larger counties will have much more trouble delivering their ballots compared to smaller counties. With the majority of Democrats being in larger, more populated counties, this could be seen as a tactic to reduce the Democratic votes at the advantage of the Republicans. Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins claims that this rule “is [prejudiced] and dangerous” towards the “hundreds of thousands of seniors and voters with disabilities to use a single drop-off location in a county that stretches nearly 2000 miles.”
With the voting process and electoral college as an important method of representation in the federal government, suppressing certain votes could create an inaccurate representation of said state. With many claims that limiting voting ballot drop-off sites in Texas will suppress Democratic votes, it could result in a majority that may not accurately reflect Texas’ true representation, causing more issues regarding the overall representation in the federal government and its policies.
Source 1: NPR
Source 2: ABC News
Source 3: Washington Post
1 comment:
What I would like to know is how limiting the amount of voting registration centers will curb voting fraud. One reason that I can think of off the top of my head is the fact that by resorting to just one center per county security resources would not be spread out as thin and would help ensure that every center is protected from voting fraud. Yet, I do not see why such drastic measures must be taken. Personally, this is purely a means of gaining an edge towards the republican party in this upcoming election season. In the past, Trump and his political agenda have put pressures on the mailing system attempting to lower the voter count of democrats. To me this resembles that of a power grab by the republican party through the use of clever loopholes. Ironically, although the Texas governor is attempting to curve voting integrity it might as well only lead to a botched election year if measures such as this one, which favor one political party over another, continue to persist among the states. This also pertains to the issue of federalism that we studied in class in which should the states be able to control the power of issuing voting centers or should the federal government intervene to control what is going on in Texas.
Post a Comment