得克萨斯州奥斯汀——共和党控制的得克萨斯州议会通过了一项对该州的大规模改革选举法律周二出台，收紧了本已严格的投票规则，并让民主党惨败，他们为剥夺少数族裔和其他倾向民主党的选民的选举权进行了长达一个月的斗争。
共和党州长格雷格·艾伯特(Greg Abbott)表示，他将签署该法案，这是共和党全国运动中以安全为名为投票增加新障碍的最新一项法案。这一努力导致了格鲁吉亚的新限制，佛罗里达州亚利桑那州和其他地方，部分是受到前总统的刺激唐纳德·特朗普他谎称选举被盗。
德克萨斯州的民主党人反对这项立法数月，认为该法案旨在让年轻人、少数种族和族裔以及残疾人——都是倾向于民主党的选民——更难投票，就像他们看到人口结构向有利于他们的政党转变一样。该法案专门针对民主党的据点，包括休斯顿的哈里斯县，在这个已经被认为是最难投票的州进一步收紧规则。
这项立法在德克萨斯州引发了一个炎热的夏天，民主党人罢工，共和党人威胁要逮捕他们，雅培否决了数千名普通员工的工资，因为法案没有尽快送达给他，以及种族主义和压制选民的指控。
“不投票给它的情感原因是，它给人们带来了困难，因为他们的肤色和种族，我是这一类人的一部分，”民主党人石榴石·科尔曼说，他是一名州代表，本月早些时候返回国会大厦帮助结束了长达38天的僵局。
即使是最后的投票也没有逃脱最后一轮的对抗，因为参议院共和党人在最后一刻破坏了两党协议中为数不多的领域之一:努力保护被判重罪的选民，如果他们没有意识到自己没有资格投票，就不会被起诉。这是在两名得克萨斯州选民被捕后遭到强烈反对后被列入的，这两名选民都是黑人，这加剧了对投票限制的更广泛斗争的批评，反对者称投票限制对有色人种的影响不成比例。
根据近75页的法案，德克萨斯州将限制投票时间，并赋予党派投票观察员权力，该法案被称为参议院法案1。这在很大程度上类似于民主党人93天前首次退出的那次，突显出在众议院和参议院都拥有压倒性多数的共和党人是如何在数月的抗议和不断升级的边缘政策面前站稳脚跟的。
“参议院第1号法案将使投票更容易，作弊更难，从而巩固对我们选举结果的信任和信心。我期待着将参议院第1号法案签署成为法律，确保德克萨斯州选举的完整性，”阿博特在法案通过几分钟后的一份声明中表示。
这种辛辣不太可能以雅培的签名结束。
德克萨斯州国会大厦将立即陷入另一场激烈的争夺，争夺重新绘制的投票地图，这可能会在未来十年锁定共和党的选举优势。自2010年以来，德克萨斯州新增居民超过400万，超过了其他任何一个州，每10名新增居民中就有9名以上是有色人种。
民主党人批评投票法案试图压制优势选民和更多样化选民的投票率，因为习惯于在美国最大的红色州赢得选举胜利的共和党人开始失去优势。
德克萨斯州共和党人用共和党在今年也通过限制性投票法的十几个其他州使用的同样措辞为该法案辩护:称这些变化是实际的保障措施，同时否认这些变化是由特朗普毫无根据地声称他因广泛的选民欺诈而失去连任所推动的。
当该法案周二在参议院获得最终批准时，拿着小木槌的是共和党副州长丹·帕特里克。去年大选几天后，帕特里克悬赏100万美元，支持特朗普毫无根据地声称民调存在违规行为。
该法案中的一项条款试图明确规定，一个人必须知道自己在非法投票，才能面临起诉。但尽管它得到了众议院的支持，但就在该法案周末定稿之际，它被参议院谈判代表否决了。
德州法律禁止假释、缓刑或监管释放的人投票。但共和党和民主党议员都对克里斯托·梅森(Crystal Mason)一案表示不安。2018年，她因在缓刑期间参加2016年总统选举的临时投票而被判处5年监禁。她说她不知道自己当时没有资格投票。
她的临时选票最终没有被计算在内，她的案子现在正在上诉中。
在全部投票通过后，众议院通过了一项决议，“一个人不应该因为犯了一个无辜的错误而被刑事监禁。”以119比4通过。
“在这种情况下，你不应该被判入狱五年，”共和党州众议员达斯汀·布伦斯说。
得克萨斯州已经有了一些全国最严格的选举法，许多目前正走向雅培的竞争最激烈的变化是禁止扩大投票选项，这些选项是在得克萨斯州最大的县新冠肺炎大流行期间实施的，该县包括休斯顿，是民主党选票的主要来源。
哈里斯县去年提供了24小时投票场所和免下车投票，并尝试向200万注册选民发送邮件投票申请。所有这些现在都将被雅培的签名宣布为非法，那些向不要求邮寄选票的选民发送邮寄选票申请的选举官员可能会面临刑事处罚。
共和党人表示，更严格的规则支配着地方选举官员从未拥有的权力，同时指责批评者夸大了这些影响。他们还强调，德克萨斯州各地两周提前投票期间的投票现在必须至少再开放一个小时，更多的县必须至少开放12个小时。
梅森的非法投票逮捕并不是唯一一个招致民主党和投票权组织批评的事件。今年7月，赫尔维斯·罗杰斯(Hervis Rogers)因被指控非法投票而被捕，因为他在2020年总统初选期间排队等候了六个多小时后，仍在假释期间投票。
这些案件引起了全国的关注，并激怒了批评者，他们认为这两起案件都是共和党人对罕见的不当投票采取强硬态度的过度努力。布伦南正义中心根据对过去选举的研究，在2017年将选票欺诈的风险评级为0.00004%至0.0009%。
Texas Legislature sends sweeping GOP voting bill to governor
AUSTIN, Texas -- The GOP-controlled Texas Legislature passed a broad overhaul of the state’selectionlaws Tuesday, tightening already strict voting rules and dealing a bruising defeat to Democrats who waged a monthslong fight over what they argued was a brazen attempt to disenfranchise minorities and other Democratic-leaning voters.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said he will sign the bill, the latest in a national GOP campaign to add new hurdles to voting in the name of security. The effort, which led to new restrictions in Georgia,Florida, Arizona and elsewhere, was spurred in part by former PresidentDonald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.
Texas Democrats fought the legislation for months, arguing the bill was tailored to make it harder for young people, racial and ethnic minorities and people with disabilities — all Democratic-leaning voters — to cast ballots, just as they see the demographics shifting to favor their party. The bill specifically targets Democratic strongholds, including Houston's Harris County, further tightening rules in a state already considered among the hardest places to cast a ballot.
The legislation set off a heated summer in Texas of walkouts by Democrats, Republicans threatening them with arrest, Abbott vetoing the paychecks of thousands of rank-and-file staffers when the bill failed to reach him sooner, and accusations of racism and voter suppression.
“The emotional reasons for not voting for it are that it creates hardships for people because of the color of their skin and their ethnicity, and I am part of that class of people,” said Democrat Garnet Coleman, a state representative whose return to the Capitol earlier this month helped end a 38-day standoff.
Even the final vote did not escape a parting round of confrontation after Senate Republicans, at the last minute, scuttled one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement: efforts to shield voters with felony convictions from prosecution if they did not realize they were ineligible to cast a ballot. It had been included following backlash over the arrests of two Texas voters, both of whom are Black, which intensified criticism amid a broader fight over voting restrictions that opponents say disproportionately impact people of color.
Texas will limit voting hours and empower partisan poll watchers under the nearly 75-page bill, known as Senate Bill 1. It is largely similar to the one Democrats first walked out on 93 days ago, underscoring how Republicans, who have overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate, held their ground in the face of months of protest and escalating brinksmanship.
“Senate Bill 1 will solidify trust and confidence in the outcome of our elections by making it easier to vote and harder to cheat. I look forward to signing Senate Bill 1 into law, ensuring election integrity in Texas,” Abbott said in a statement minutes after the bill passed.
That acrimony is unlikely to end with Abbott’s signature.
The Texas Capitol is set to immediately shift into another charged fight over redrawn voting maps that could lock in Republican electoral advantages for the next decade. Texas added more than 4 million new residents since 2010, more than any other state, with people of color accounting for more than nine in every 10 new residents.
Democrats criticized the voting bill as an attempt to suppress the turnout of an ascendant and more diverse electorate as Republicans, who are used to racking up commanding electoral victories in America’s biggest red state, begin to lose ground.
Texas Republicans defended the bill in the same terms the GOP has used in more than a dozen other states that have also passed restrictive voting laws this year: calling the changes practical safeguards, while denying they are driven by Trump’s baseless claims that he lost reelection because of widespread voter fraud.
When the bill won final approval Tuesday in the Senate, holding the gavel on the dais was Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Days after the election last year, Patrick offered a $1 million reward in support of Trump’s unfounded claims of irregularities at the polls.
One provision in the bill had sought to add clarity that a person must have known he or she was voting illegally in order to face prosecution. But although it had buy-in from the House, it was rejected by Senate negotiators just as the bill was being finalized over the weekend.
Texas law prohibits people on parole, probation or supervised release from voting. But both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have expressed unease over the case of Crystal Mason, who was sentenced to five years in prison in 2018 for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 presidential election when she was on probation. She has said she was unaware that she was ineligible to cast a ballot at the time.
Her provisional vote wound up not counting, and her case is now on appeal.
After the full voting bill cleared, the House approved a resolution that “a person should not be criminally incarcerated for making an innocent mistake.” It passed 119-4.
“You should not be put in jail for five years under those circumstances,” Republican state Rep. Dustin Burrows said.
Texas already has some of the nation’s toughest election laws, and many of the most hotly contested changes now heading to Abbott are prohibitions on expanded voting options put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic in Texas’ largest county, which includes Houston and is a major source of Democratic votes.
Harris County last year offered 24-hour polling places and drive-thru voting, as well as tried sending mail-ballot applications to 2 million registered voters. All of that would now be outlawed with Abbott’s signature, and election officials who send mail-in ballots applications to voters who don’t request one could face criminal penalties.
Republicans said the tightened rules reign in powers that local elections officials never had in the first place, while accusing critics of exaggerating the impacts. They also emphasized that polls during two weeks of early voting everywhere in Texas must now be open for at least an extra hour, and that more counties must have polls open for at least 12 hours.
Mason’s illegal voting arrest is not the only one to draw criticism from Democrats and voting rights groups. In July, Hervis Rogers was arrested on charges of illegal voting because he cast a ballot while still on parole after waiting more than six hours in line during the 2020 presidential primary.
The cases drew national attention and angered critics who saw both as overzealous attempts by Republicans to look tough on rare cases of improper voting. The Brennan Center for Justice in 2017 ranked the risk of ballot fraud at 0.00004% to 0.0009%, based on studies of past elections.
