Texas Governor Greg Abbot Signs Controversial Elections Bill into Law
Today, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 1, which places new restrictions on voting in the state. The bill limits voting in several ways, including restricting drive-thru voting and 24-hour voting booths and making mail-in voting more difficult. These changes come in the aftermath of the Trump Campaign's unfounded accusations of widespread voter fraud. Texas Republicans, including Governor Abbot, champion the new measures as a means to safeguard against this supposed fraudulent voting. Prior to the bill's ratification, Abbot stressed the importance of "trust and confidence" in elections and explained that "the law… does make it harder for fraudulent votes to be cast." Those opposed to the bill, however, see it as an attempt to safeguard the Republican party's hold on Texas rather than a legitimate effort to curb election fraud. The bill has faced fierce opposition, including a 15-hour long filibuster by Texas State Senator Carol Alvarado and a boycott by Texas House Democrats in a failed attempt to block the bill's passage. It also faces several lawsuits that claim that it violates federal voter protections. The bill specifically targets voting methods that are used disproportionately more often by members of ethnic minorities, who tend to be Democrats. These same communities are the fastest growing in Texas, contributing to the growing threat against the Republican Party's grasp on the state.
Robert Dahl, a well-known political theorist, suggests that in an ideal democracy, each citizen's vote counts the same, and each citizen has an opportunity to vote. While the United States is far from meeting the first criterion, as evidenced by the fact that lesser populated states have disproportionately more influence on the electoral college than more populated states, Senate Bill 1 is poised to negatively impact the second criterion by making it more difficult to vote, bringing us even further from the ideal democracy. In the United States, voter turnout slacks behind that of many other developed countries. Rather than restricting voting, what we should be doing is expanding voter outreach to ensure that as many people as possible vote. Voter fraud should be taken seriously; however, since November 2018, there has only been strong evidence of about 200 incidents of this occurring, suggesting that current measures taken to combat voter fraud are working quite well. While nobody truly knows the extent of uncaught voter fraud, it is essential to ensure any restrictions aimed to reduce it do not significantly hamper Americans' ability to vote.
Analysis Questions:
Do you believe the bill is an attempt to curb voter fraud? Or is it's main purpose something else?
Given the large difference in Americans’ political beliefs when comparing age and ethnic group, and the relatively low voter turnout amongst minority ethnic groups and young people, what do you think is the best way to encourage a more equal voter turnout?
Where do you think is an equal balance of ensuring election integrity while ensuring access to voting for all?
Why is it important to try to increase voter turnout, and why is it important that we try to make voter turnout more equal across different groups of people?
5 comments:
The United States already suffers from low voter turnout rate compared to other developed countries, ranking 11th in the world (at about 55.7%). Creating more restrictions on voting, especially on drive-thru and mail-in voting, is therefore not beneficial in raising that voter turnout rate. Unfortunately, lies spread about the 2020 election has propelled Senate Bill 1 into law under the guise of safeguarding against voter fraud (which some think caused Trump to lose the re-election). While ensuring election integrity is essential in keeping America's democracy, there is no evidence of such prevalent voter fraud, causing this bill to be completely unfounded. About 40% of the nation does not participate in general elections. While one reason behind that large figure could be attributed to citizens willfully choosing not to vote, there still needs to be active widespread outreach encouraging those citizens to vote. Making voting easier for citizens is another way to encourage voting from different groups of people who weren't voting before. Because there is no evidence that drive-thru or mail-in voting has caused any prevalent voter fraud, Senate Bill 1 fails to protect American democracy simply because the danger of prevalent voter fraud doesn't really exist, but low voter turnout rate does. It is very important that American elections have as many people participate as possible so that those elections can be more representative of American citizens -- in order to uphold the same values of democracy that those propagating "the big lie" (about the 2020 election) say they uphold.
I agree with Anthony that a disproportionate amount of focus seems to be directed towards preventing voter fraud when there is little to no evidence suggesting that this is a large issue. Rather than making it harder to vote, we should be taking action to improve America's voter turnout issue.
The voter turnout issue can be traced to two main sources: our apathetic political culture and legislative barriers such as Voter ID laws. From the political culture standpoint, people might not vote because they feel a distrust or lack of connection to the American political process, and don't vote because they feel it makes no real difference. However, voter turnout is important for more than one reason, as the NPR article "On the Sidelines of Democracy: Exploring Why So Many Americans Don't Vote" points out, "It's debatable whether election results would be different if the entire population voted, but voting determines more than which candidate wins or loses. It ultimately influences which policies elected officials enact and whose interests candidates ignore and acknowledge." Politicians are going to pay more attention to the needs and desires of people who vote. This is why it's also about who specifically is not voting, rather than how many people are not voting. According to the same article, "[t]he wealthy tend to vote more frequently. Nonvoters are more likely to be poor, young, Hispanic or Asian-American. Some research also indicates they're more likely to align with the Democratic Party." The reasons for the disparities in who votes would make this comment too long, but it is clear who is affected most by policies that make it harder to vote. This is why it is important to focus more on improving voter turnout, and improving it specifically in groups that have historically been excluded and disadvantaged in the voting process.
Link: https://www.npr.org/2018/09/10/645223716/on-the-sidelines-of-democracy-exploring-why-so-many-americans-dont-vote
I agree with Zara and Anthony, essentially voter fraud is not that big of an issue currently. Our mechanisms to enforce it seem to be working well. I think access and encouragement for people to vote is what will ultimately drive them to make that decision. As for voter ID laws, I understand that they discourage some from voting, however, I think the issue is not requiring ID. I personally think it's logical and reasonable to require ID for someone to vote to make sure a voter is who they say they are. However, the issue comes with access to ID. States that require ID need to actively make an effort to make sure everyone who wants to vote can easily obtain an ID. ProPublica cites some interesting statistics from NYU that say that 11% of those who are eligible to vote don't have an ID they can use to vote. Clearly requiring an ID will discourage these people from voting, so what I think states should do is make an effort to ensure they have easy access to an ID. I do need to do some more research on voter ID laws, however, as I'll admit my knowledge on them and their effects is quite limited.
I do agree with critics of this bill that this voting law does have political motivations behind it to try to prevent different political parties from increasing their political power in the states. While I do think people who support this law do really think that it will prevent voting fraud and will increase voting integrity I do not think this will be the end result nor the purpose of the law by the people who wrote the law. I do agree with Zara though that people are probably not voting due to a lack of interest and distrust in the government. I think this is most prevalent in minority groups that feel that the government has not given any substantial benefits to them. I think a solution to this would most likely have to be long term such as trying to change the mindset around how people view the government and voting in general to try to increase voting as a whole. As for the balance between voting integrity and voting turnout I think that this is kind of a hard standard to set. While currently there is a lot of controversy I think that it is probably more important to educate and show people that the voting system is safe and less of trying to enforce more laws to ensure voting security. As for ensuring voting for all I personally think maintaining the status quo is good enough (well I mean besides this voting law) and simply trying to encourage more people to vote is a better option which would probably create less controversy. Voting turnout is important as it ensures everyone has a say in the matter and allows for understanding from policy makers how the general public feels about an issue.
A couple of months ago I was reading about the Georgia new voting regulations and the NYT's analysis writer was warning about this being the beginning of a larger southern movement. And lo and behold, the prophecy comes true. The new voting regulations are based almost completely on unfounded data, and almost all of them indirectly attack minorities. Many people don't have the privilege of voting in person, and making voting for the people with an abundance of time is strictly discriminatory. Everyone on all sides are here to preserve democracy, but exploiting fear and rage over an election to pass obviously classist and racist legislation is immoral. Unfortunately, congress is stuck on trying to pass the infrastructure and Biden agenda bills while leaving voting rights on the back burner.
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