New York Times: Texas lawmakers advance a bill that would make voting more difficult, drawing comparisons to Georgia.

Lawmakers in Texas, a state that already claims the most onerous voting laws in the nation, on Thursday took a major step toward making it even tougher to cast a ballot, the latest in a bevy of Republican-backed efforts to restrict voting ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

The State Senate approved an overhaul of election law that would roll back many steps taken by counties last year to facilitate voting during the pandemic and impose new curbs in their place, including statewide limits on polling-place hours, a new formula for locating polling places and a ban on drop boxes that were widely used nationwide last year to assist mail-in voters.

The proposal also would ban anyone except the voter who filled out a ballot from dropping it in a mailbox or delivering it to an election official. It adds new paperwork requirements for voters who need help because of language problems or disabilities. And it would give so-called poll watchers — untrained monitors, usually chosen by candidates or party officials, who are stationed inside polling places — the right to videotape voters if they deem them suspicious.

The Texas measure comes on the heels of efforts in Iowa and Georgia, where lawmakers significantly tightened voting rules last month. The Georgia measure has been criticized by executives of several major companies with headquarters in the state. In Arizona, two Republican-backed bills that would erect roadblocks to voting by mail — the method used by eight in 10 voters — are approaching final votes in the State Legislature. …

Stephanie Gómez, the associate director of the advocacy group Common Cause Texas, said in a video conference with reporters that the two bills were “weaponizing legislation to codify widespread voter intimidation.”

“If you want to know which state is going to be the next Georgia,” she said, “it’s Texas.”