{"id":6277,"date":"2021-10-07T11:45:42","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T11:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=6277"},"modified":"2021-10-07T11:45:42","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T11:45:42","slug":"whats-in-the-new-republican-voting-law-that-passed-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=6277","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s in the new Republican voting law that passed in Texas?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\n\n&#8220;SB 1 has morphed and changed considerably over the last several months, and the final version does not include some of the most aggressive attempts to limit voting rights that were included in previous iterations. The final version stripped a provision that would have&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/22463490\/voting-rights-democracy-texas-georgia-suppression-jim-crow-supreme-court-sb7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">shut down many urban polling precincts<\/a>, and another that would have&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2021\/07\/09\/1014579306\/texas-republicans-have-a-new-voting-bill-heres-whats-in-it\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ended early voting on Sunday mornings<\/a>, when many Black churches sponsor \u201csouls-to-the-polls\u201d drives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It also doesn\u2019t include anything resembling the most troubling provision of Georgia\u2019s recently enacted election law, which permits Republican officials to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/22607616\/georgia-republicans-fulton-county-atlanta-voter-suppression-sb202-jim-crow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">take over election administration in Democratic strongholds<\/a>&nbsp;such as Atlanta, which has the potential to disenfranchise voters en masse.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;the bill does include a number of provisions that either make it harder to vote in Texas or tweak the state\u2019s election rules in ways that advantage Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;In 2020, for example, a few polling places in Harris County, a highly Democratic area that includes Houston,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2021\/08\/30\/texas-voting-restrictions-bill\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">remained open for 24 hours<\/a>. The Republican bill bans this practice while simultaneously expanding early voting in many smaller counties \u2014 which tend to be the domain of the GOP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Similarly, the bill imposes new restrictions on absentee voting, such as a requirement that most voters provide their driver\u2019s license number in order to vote by mail, and a provision that makes it a felony for election officials to send unsolicited absentee ballot applications to voters. In 2020, Republicans were much less likely to vote absentee than Democrats, most likely because then-President Donald Trump&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2020\/8\/11\/21358960\/trump-mail-voting-sabotage-explained\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">repeatedly denounced mail-in ballots<\/a>.&#8221;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;One potentially troubling provision of the GOP bill requires election officials to conduct monthly purges of the state\u2019s voting rolls, ostensibly to identify noncitizens who may have registered to vote. Another provides new legal protections to partisan poll watchers, who are permitted to observe elections and the vote-counting process \u2014 but who may also&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2021\/7\/13\/22573680\/democrats-texas-flee-greg-abbott-voting-election-special-session-quorum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">attempt to disrupt the election<\/a>.&#8221;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8221; No one who cares about voting rights should celebrate SB 1. It erects unnecessary barriers between voters and the franchise, and it subtly changes Texas\u2019s election law in ways that are likely to benefit the party that wrote the bill. But much of SB 1 makes only marginal changes to Texas\u2019s already quite restrictive voting laws.&#8221;<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/22652172\/texas-voting-bill-sb1-republican-elections-restrictions-early-absentee-purge-greg-abbott\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/www.vox.com\/22652172\/texas-voting-bill-sb1-republican-elections-restrictions-early-absentee-purge-greg-abbott<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;SB 1 has morphed and changed considerably over the last several months, and the final version does not include some of the most aggressive attempts to limit voting rights that were included in previous iterations. The final version stripped a provision that would have shut down many urban polling precincts, and another that would have ended early voting on Sunday mornings, when many Black churches sponsor \u201csouls-to-the-polls\u201d drives.<\/p>\n<p>It also doesn\u2019t include anything resembling the most troubling provision of Georgia\u2019s recently enacted election law, which permits Republican officials to take over election administration in Democratic strongholds such as Atlanta, which has the potential to disenfranchise voters en masse.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;the bill does include a number of provisions that either make it harder to vote in Texas or tweak the state\u2019s election rules in ways that advantage Republicans.<\/p>\n<p> In 2020, for example, a few polling places in Harris County, a highly Democratic area that includes Houston, remained open for 24 hours. The Republican bill bans this practice while simultaneously expanding early voting in many smaller counties \u2014 which tend to be the domain of the GOP.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, the bill imposes new restrictions on absentee voting, such as a requirement that most voters provide their driver\u2019s license number in order to vote by mail, and a provision that makes it a felony for election officials to send unsolicited absentee ballot applications to voters. In 2020, Republicans were much less likely to vote absentee than Democrats, most likely because then-President Donald Trump repeatedly denounced mail-in ballots.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;One potentially troubling provision of the GOP bill requires election officials to conduct monthly purges of the state\u2019s voting rolls, ostensibly to identify noncitizens who may have registered to vote. Another provides new legal protections to partisan poll watchers, who are permitted to observe elections and the vote-counting process \u2014 but who may also attempt to disrupt the election.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8221; No one who cares about voting rights should celebrate SB 1. It erects unnecessary barriers between voters and the franchise, and it subtly changes Texas\u2019s election law in ways that are likely to benefit the party that wrote the bill. But much of SB 1 makes only marginal changes to Texas\u2019s already quite restrictive voting laws.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[198,111,21,714,1325,479],"class_list":["post-6277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-elections","tag-laws","tag-texas","tag-voter-fraud","tag-voter-suppression","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6278,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6277\/revisions\/6278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}