Read on Twitter
To put the Texas Supreme Court’s craven, chickenshit ruling on mail-in ballots from this week in perspective — it helps to understand some of the history of voter suppression in Texas. (They’ll tell you it’s about voter fraud, but I think we all know what’s happening.) ...thread https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/1266370306240741381
Those in power in Texas have ALWAYS tried to keep blacks and Latinos from voting. 1902 poll tax requirement in order to vote in Texas “to prevent voter fraud” but the intended goal was to keep blacks, Latinos and poor whites from voting, and it worked. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/curious-texas/2018/09/25/why-did-texas-have-a-poll-tax-and-when-did-it-end-curious-texas-investigates/
In 1918, Texas targets immigrants through legislation that bans interpreters at the polls and forbids naturalized citizens from receiving assistance from election judges unless they have been citizens for 21 years. (“To prevent voter fraud.”)
In 1923 the legislature enables dominant Democratic party to run a whites-only primary. Thanks to civil rights champions like El Pasoan Lawrence Nixon, who took the fight to the Supreme Court twice, this was eventually overturned. BUT IT TOOK 20 YEARS. https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/life/2015/07/24/dr-nixons-story/71968244/
In 1966 the poll tax is struck down in Texas. In response, the Governor passes legislation requiring voters to re-register every year - to “prevent voter fraud.”
By mid 1970s, thanks to Voting Rights Act, federal government begins to “pre-clear” changes to voting rolls and voting laws in Texas and strikes down the state’s efforts to exclude blacks and Latinos.
Then in 2013 the U.S. Supreme Court neuters the Voting Rights Act, and the federal backstop against disenfranchisement in Texas is removed. Immediately Texas implements the most restrictive voter ID laws in the country (“to prevent voter fraud”).
By 2014 Texas has lowest voter turnout in the U.S. Voter ID laws, racist gerrymandering (‘81, ‘03, ‘11) & more than a century of intimidation directed at black & Latino voters (all in the name of preventing voter fraud) have achieved the desired effect: massive voter suppression.
Suppression that deprives our fellow citizens of their constitutional rights. Suppression that denies all of us the true and full genius of the electorate - and has left Texas with profound problems in healthcare, climate, education, criminal justice, to name a few.
The truth is, there is no statistically meaningful problem with voter fraud in Texas or in this country (for ex: over the last two decades, about 0.00006% of total vote-by-mail votes cast were fraudulent).
The problem is with the frauds in office. Abbott, Patrick & Paxton (enabled by this bought-and-paid-for TX Supreme Court) claiming voter fraud where none exists, trying to force Texans to decide between their lives and their right to vote (TX leads country in COVID spread).
This is what we must overcome. And to do that we must win elections in Texas, against these odds and against these efforts to suppress voting. Replace the current TX Supreme Court. Elect a Democratic majority to the Texas legislature for the first time in 20 years... and
... deprive Donald Trump the 38 electoral college votes that will — more than anything else in any other state — once and for all end his Presidency and his efforts to undermine and destroy this country.
WHAT IF the very state which was so long kept from realizing its potential and power because of government-sponsored racist suppression, was the same state to throw off the most racist, voter-suppressing President of our lifetime?
There are more than 1 million Democrats who have moved to Texas but haven’t yet registered to vote here. There’s a phone bank on Monday to call them & make sure they help decide the most important election of our lives. We could use your help. https://act.betoorourke.com/event/voter-registration/34370/?source=beto-em-202006011
