Election Protection

Amid news reports that at least two counties are having to reject about half of mail ballot applications, Common Cause Texas is urging voters to check the status of their applications and re-apply, if necessary, before next month’s deadline.

How much taxpayer money is it going to take, to convince former President Trump that he lost the 2020 election? Wisconsin taxpayers are spending almost $700,000. Arizona taxpayers are on the hook for millions. Now, using emergency powers, Governor Abbott has got Texas taxpayers on the hook for $4 million more.

The Texas Senate State Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on SB 47, a bill authorizing political party chairs to demand reviews of the 2020 election. The bill also authorizes political party chairs to demand reviews of future elections, and elevate those reviews to the Secretary of State for further review, with counties paying the entire cost of the processes.

This is partisan grandstanding at the expense of taxpayers. Common Cause Texas strongly urges the House to vote no on this dangerous legislation and instead focus on preventing the spread of the COVID-19 virus that has killed more than 55,000 of our fellow Texans and has more than 13,000 in the hospital fighting for their lives. 

"Voter suppression doesn't get much more blatant than this outrageous attempt to invalidate the votes of nearly 127,000 Texans," said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, in response to the decision. "We hope this ruling eliminates some of the anxiety and confusion so many Houstonians were feeling. This should allow the election to be decided by Texas voters and not by a small group of people trying to disrupt our democracy through litigation, suppression and confusion."

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has been accused of trying to stifle Democratic votes by issuing a directive limiting ballot drop boxes to one per county. That strikes some Democrats as an effort to make voting harder for residents of the state’s sprawling metropolises, which tend to vote Democratic. Harris County, home to Houston, has a population of more than 4.7 million people and covers 1,777 square miles. “I can’t think of any other reason to do this other than voter suppression,” said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, which filed suit against the state over the directive.