On a holiday weekend in Texas, Republicans worked overnight and passed a new electoral law they call “common sense” … but opponents see it as the most restrictive in the country. Drive-thru voting and 24-hour voting centers will be abolished in Texas under the new law. Sunday’s vote will be postponed later in the day, undermining so-called souls-to-the-polls efforts in black churches. Postal voting will be further restricted. And judges will have more power to overturn elections. … Any changes that could hit Harris County Democrats particularly hard in the Houston area. Democrats said Republicans denied public time to check their language after the GOP suspended rules that would normally prohibit voting on the bill within a 24-hour window. But the GOP pushed the bill onto the governor’s desk early Sunday after eight hours of questioning by powerless Democrats. It then cleared a final vote at the Texas House late Sunday and reached Governor Greg Abbott, who signed off. According to New York’s Brennan Center for Justice, at least 14 states have passed stricter electoral laws since Donald Trump failed his re-election bid and Republicans lost control of the Senate. Trump won Texas, but a close race resulted in false claims of widespread voter fraud. Republicans in Georgia and Florida also passed new election restrictions. In Michigan, another battlefield state, Republicans are considering several bills to restrict the right to vote, a mission the secretary of state said is deeply worrying. Elections were far from safe and secure, codifying laws that encourage this and many of the measures that led to such a huge turnout and security in 2020, really reversing it, but then, thirdly, removing the authority of the electoral administrators or replacing them at all levels that guarded the elections, “said Jocelyn Benson, Michigan Secretary of State. President Biden said Sunday the Texas bill and the like are an attack on democracy and target black and brown voters. But it appears on CNN’s State of the Union Texas Republican Congressman Mike McCaul named the vote changes, quote, ” small measures “. that no fraud takes place.”
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