The Guardian: Republicans strategize for next elections: ‘Their plan is to make it harder for voters to participate’

The Guardian: Republicans strategize for next elections: 'Their plan is to make it harder for voters to participate'

“There are definitely going to be those same efforts, like we saw during the election, to combat what local election administrators are doing to try and innovate to try and make voting more convenient and safer,” said Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of Common Cause Texas, a government watchdog group. “Texas is always on the cutting edge of finding new ways to suppress the vote.”

After record turnout in the 2020 presidential election, Republicans in some states are already signaling they will pursue measures that make it harder to vote in the coming years.

The Republican efforts come after an election in which nearly 160 million people voted, the highest in a presidential election in over a century. About half of voters cast their ballots by mail, a big increase from 2016, while about another quarter cast their ballots in person ahead of election day.

The GOP backlash underscores how swiftly and severely the party is willing to cut off access to the ballot amid signs of a changing electorate. The baseless accusations of fraud that Donald Trump and other allies continue to levy about the election has offered election officials justification for passing the measures. …

In Texas, which already has some of the most stringent rules around voting in the country, lawmakers have pre-filed several bills with new restrictions. One bill would prevent state officials from sending out applications to vote by mail. The measure comes after election officials in Harris county tried to mail applications to all 2.4 million registered voters in the county.

“There are definitely going to be those same efforts, like we saw during the election, to combat what local election administrators are doing to try and innovate to try and make voting more convenient and safer,” said Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of Common Cause Texas, a government watchdog group. “Texas is always on the cutting edge of finding new ways to suppress the vote.”