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Vote on Texas bill to make voting tougher blocked by no quorum

Published 05/30/2021, 10:46 AM
Updated 05/31/2021, 06:46 PM
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Voting rights activists gather during a protest against Texas legislators who are advancing new voting restrictions in Austin, Texas, U.S., May 8, 2021.  REUTERS/Mikala Compton

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Voting rights activists gather during a protest against Texas legislators who are advancing new voting restrictions in Austin, Texas, U.S., May 8, 2021. REUTERS/Mikala Compton

By Brad Brooks

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) -Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives boycotted a legislative session late Sunday, blocking a vote on an election reform bill critics say would make it harder for Blacks and Hispanics to vote.

With just over an hour before a midnight deadline to pass the measure, Republican members of the House said that Democrats had walked out to deny the House a quorum for a vote.

The Texas House went into recess until 10 a.m. local time on Monday - beyond the midnight Sunday deadline to pass legislation in this session.

A vote on the measure is certain to pass the Republican-dominated house. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who strongly supports the bill, said in a late Sunday emailed statement that the bill would be added to a special legislative session planned for this fall.

Supporters of the legislation said it is needed to bolster election security. The country's second-most-populous state already has some of the most restrictive electoral laws in the United States, even without the pending bill.

The proposed bill states that the changes "are not intended to impair the right of free suffrage" but are necessary to "prevent fraud in the electoral process."

Republican U.S. Representative Michael McCaul of Texas told CNN's "State of the Union" that the intent is to "give the American people more trust in our elections."

Democrats and civil rights groups argue that such legislation disproportionately burdens or discourages voters of color, as well as the elderly and disabled.

There were no substantial allegations of fraud in Texas in last year's election and Republicans maintained their three-decade grip on all statewide offices.

Republican state lawmakers across the country have pursued more stringent voting restrictions following former President Donald Trump's false claim that he lost the 2020 election because of widespread election fraud.

So far, 14 other U.S. states have enacted 22 laws this year that make it more difficult for Americans to vote, according to a report released on Friday by the Brennan Center for Justice.

SCRAPPING INNOVATIONS

The Texas bill would strike down innovations used during last November's election because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Drive-through voting, credited with helping spark record voter turnout in Houston, will no longer be allowed. The bill also limits early hours to vote, makes it more difficult to cast absentee ballots and does away with drop boxes.

The bill would forbid voting on Sundays before 1 p.m. Critics called that a blatant strike on the "Souls to the Polls" effort at Black churches, when worshippers have traditionally traveled in caravans to polling sites to cast votes after morning services.

The legislation would also scrap 24-hour polling sites and ban mobile units or temporary structures from being used as polling places.

The bill would also make it easier for courts to overturn elections where fraud is alleged. Instead of requiring evidence that fraudulent votes directly resulted in a candidate's win, a court could overturn an election if the number of fraudulent votes is equal to the margin of victory, regardless of who those fraudulent votes were cast for.

New requirements would take effect as well for Texans who want to vote through the mail and election officials would be barred from sending unsolicited mail-in ballot applications to voters. The legislation would also make the removal of disruptive, partisan poll watchers more difficult.

Democratic President Joe Biden said in a statement on Saturday that the legislation in Texas "attacks the sacred right to vote."

Earlier this month, dozens of companies - including American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL) Group Inc, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) Co and Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) - urged legislators to reject any law restricting access to ballots.

'IN THEIR PLACE'

Members of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus and the state's NAACP civil rights organization said the bill hearkened back to the Jim Crow-era, when laws were enacted to block Blacks from voting and to maintain racial segregation in the U.S. South from the late 19th century into the 1960s.

"This is a clear case of taking power and putting minorities in their place so they can never share power in Texas," Gary Bledsoe, president of the state's NAACP chapter, said ahead of the vote.

Julian Castro, secretary of housing and urban development under former President Barack Obama and a former mayor of San Antonio, told a Democratic Party news conference that the rapidly shifting demographics of Texas had Republicans "running scared because they know that this state is changing and they're afraid of the consequences."

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Voting rights activists gather during a protest against Texas legislators who are advancing new voting restrictions in Austin, Texas, U.S., May 8, 2021.  REUTERS/Mikala Compton

Hispanics are forecast by the official Texas state demographer to surpass non-Hispanic whites as the largest group later this year.

Former Democratic Representative Beto O'Rourke, speaking during the same news conference, urged the U.S. Congress to pass expanded voting rights to stymie the vote-restriction efforts in Republican-controlled states, so that the United States would not revert to "Jim Crow 2.0."

Latest comments

Glad us 99 percenters can all stay nice and divided for the benefit of the 1 percent.
The only reason the left opposes this laws is because it makes them far more difficult for them to commit fraud. End of the story.Pretending black and hispanics can't vote because the process is more complex also proofs how racists Democrats really are
Harder to vote is better than not able to vote. Don't be greedy.
Shame on Republicans
Jason Zou took a poo! I'm a poet and didn't know it!
You live on poos all your life, you didn’t realize it.
Oh wow the right wing snow melt is coming in hot today! Its a flood! As a Texan, I am glad that these blatant supression tactics failed.
Badakathcare! You're a lying dog faced pony soldier! And clean and articulate, that's a fairy tale, man!
are you ok?
Benjamin, it's not over, yet. As a Texan and versed in Texas history, all you have to do is look at LBJ's robbing of an senate election with fraud. Gov Abbot will call special election. Dems ridiculous tantrums won't survive.
Maybe the problem is with how ID is issued, not using it as a requirement for voting.  Nearly every western country requires ID for voting.  Not sure why it gets turned into a race issue in the US.
This movement started after Loser Trumps unsubstantiated claim of voter fraud. No validated Proof of voter fraud PERIOD.
, Wrong-mariposa country did not delete or loose voter files as the so call auditors could not locate subject files as one check of your reply...Stop spreading untrue information that is easy to validate. Smart readers will fact check what they read.
The found, all of a sudden, databases showed the serial numbers did not match original voting records As I mentioned above.You should take your own advice and validate your posts. In addition, as mentioned in earlier post, five states violated their own election laws. Facts vs ideology.
has no legal birth certificate. He was born in Argentina and not valid citizen. See how I can make up stuff too?
MLB moved their all-star game because Georgia state law requires photo ID for voting. Irony is you need a photo ID to get Will Call tickets at Atlanta Braves game.
I will veto Article 10 of the budget passed by the legislature. Article 10 funds the legislative branch. No pay for those who abandon their responsibilities. Stay tuned.~ Gov Abbott of Texas
wow. this subject is a bit sensitive for my USA brothers! :)
Democrats are seeming pretty racist here
Election integrity is the US is not an unreasonable thing to expect. It’s waaaay easier to vote now than it was even 10 years ago. At some point, we all need solid rules so that we can begin to believe in our elections. Why are the Dems so afraid of that?
Cannot vote before 1 PM on Sundays. I am sure there is some excuse for that.
Both sides just want the ability to contest the election outcome. If these laws do pass, leftists will complain if they lose the election. If they do not, republicans will complain if they lose. This is not a new issue, the main difference is the media is engaging in worsening propaganda that is polarizing intending to divide the country more by portraying laws hyperbolically. Places like Reuters have to bust out articles ever few minutes hoping to get clicks, so they push headlines like this even though it is bad for the country.
U. S politic is a joke.
  You’re nuts. Dems never accept results when they lose. Never!
And, for the record, I have an ad blocker and enable it for sites like this that intentionally push propaganda. I have no problem looking at ads or permitting sites that have integrity.
Retuers should be ashamed of themselves for this. Left or right, does not matter...portraying laws that are not discriminatory (unless you think that black people are too ignorant to register to vote, which I guess leftists do) does nothing but make people question the integrity of the election. You cannot just drop ballots from an airplane and go on the honor code. Thanks to propaganda like this, whether or not the laws pass, now both sides will not trust the election outcomes. Retuers you are absolutely disgusting for promoting this type of 1984-speak.
Not sending unsolicited ballots?! Oh no! The horror! How will dead people vote now?!
 go to google and type "dead people who voted in 2020" and you will see thousands of stories with cases. i am not going to post somebody's name and date of birth and date of death on this site. you can easily find the information.
 Just because you want only propaganda news networks that brainwash youdoes not mean that there is not other things happening in the world.
 there are 10000000 cases Tommy Uncle Tom Lemon
Love how the media like Reuters has become completely shameless in their political propaganda. "Make voting tougher" is leftist newspeak for "make it more difficult for democrats to commit voter fraud again".
Reuters, you mean Texas tried to restrict voter fraud. good grief.
what voter fraud? 2016?
 Yes Uncle Tom Daub... the 2016 that clinton has cried about for 8 years... everyone absolutely loved her and she won... hahaha
Member when Bush stole the electorial election in Florida and the state required photo ids from 1998 and beyond. Yet the Republicans were able to kerfuffle the results by cross checking names with out of state ids that purged and disqualified 1000's of Florida residents from voting. Member that!? So therefore voter id laws are a joke and do not stop a motivated cheater from getting elected.
yea, I remember when Gore tried to steal the election from Bush.
oh u must have had your head berryed up your beehind to memba it being that way. How does your brain look inside your colon?
Member when Bush cheated into office 2 times in a row with the help of his brother!? And both Gore and Kerry conceded the election and didn't spin visceral rhetoric creating a blood thirsty mob that attcked the Capitol... Member that
I distinctly recall those two elections going very differently and while the 'mob that attacked the capital' was terrible(nothing that the US doesnt deserve, mind you), they didn't have weapons and the only person that died was one of the 'rioters'.
Comrade Igor from the motherland. How do you know what happened outside of your cold home and capital Moscow in 2000 and 2004?
Reuters is just another liberal rag in full display. why does investing.com give them or any other liberal socialist rag a voice on a financial website?
I thought you guys hate cancel culture lol? Freedom of speech, am I right?
always for the others
These new laws make it easier for Trump Republicans and their rascist, and seditious allies, to suppress the vote and steal the next elections. good job Texas now you've joined the new anti-democratic league of states ... showing the rest of the country what you represent . ...you've sold your soul to Donald Trump,.
CNN Brainwashed!
who?
youtu. be / T3PaqxblOx0 Malcolm X was right, you are wrong.
"Supporters of the legislation said it is needed to bolster election security. The country's second-most-populous state already has some of the most restrictive electoral laws in the United States, even without the pending bill."  ---- Trump won Texas despite of a record setting mail ballots in 2020, and by GOP election officials own admission that there were no large scale fraud in Texas.  But apparently we need more voting restrictions to prevent frauds that didn't exist, or just in case voters decided to vote for democrats, or something.....
good job texas. terrible líes in this article from author. "in Dem state u need a license to drive but not vote because they say that is racist"... what a joke
Give me one good reason why voting before 1pm on Sunday needs to be legislated as unlawful. Blatant racial legislation!
you need to be instructed on how rascist policies in Texas works. as well as what the term rascist means.
 "Give me one good reason why voting before 1pm on Sunday needs to be legislated as unlawful."   -- well, you know why, because black people go to churches on Sunday and then go voting afterward, surely we can't have that, that's just fraud!!!
I understand that the only voting fraud discovered in the US was done by Republican operatives and Trump supporters.
Lol
Left talk about democracy is joke
Yeah and those same people said COVID may have orginated in a lab in Wuhan also. Crazy cospiracy theorists lol
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