WaPo: “In 2020, Harris County became a national model for how to run safe, secure and convenient elections. We tripled early voting locations, extended voting hours to 10 p.m. on three early-voting days and had a day of 24-hour voting. We implemented drive-through voting. The result: Record voter turnout, as 68 percent of registered voters went to the polls — the greatest participation Harris County had seen since 1992.
The response to this beautiful display of democracy is Texas Senate Bill 7, among other measures. The bill would ban 24-hour voting and do away with drive-through voting. It would also limit the number of polling places, a sure way to discourage voting by causing delays and long lines. The Senate has approved the bill, which has the general support of Gov. Greg Abbott (R). Another version, House Bill 6, was approved Thursday by the House Elections Committee.
Alarmingly, the bill would also allow partisan “poll watchers” free access to polling places and authorize them to take videos of voters. That evokes the suppression efforts of the 1950s and 1960s, when voter intimidation at the polls was a regular practice. Men with guns would linger outside polling sites in minority neighborhoods, some dressed so they appeared to be in law enforcement….This latest attack on voting rights is widespread, and demands a response in kind. Millions of Americans today would almost certainly say that they would have joined King during the civil rights movement. Now they have an opportunity to step up in defense of voting rights that were so hard-won. Many major corporations, government leaders and advocacy groups are joining the movement. We need everyone.”