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“If the goal of redistricting is to ensure all voters have access to free and fair elections, it’s no surprise Texas failed the assignment,” said Anthony Gutierrez, Common Cause Texas Executive Director.

“Blaming our dedicated election officials for doing their job and implementing his disastrous anti-voter bill is a new low for this Governor. The mess that we’re seeing today is what happens when you appoint someone to run our elections who is hellbent on overturning the will of the people in the 2020 election."

This week, Texas Monthly reported that since September, Texas election administrators required more than 11,000 Texans to provide proof of citizenship or lose their freedom to vote. The procedure the Secretary of State’s office has been instructing county officials to use appears eerily similar to the one used by former Secretary of State David Whitley.

While we are grateful for the involvement of the federal government, what we need to stop the five-decade cycle of having to take legal action every ten years is for Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act.

Today, Governor Greg Abbott signed racially and partisan gerrymandered district maps for Texas House of Representatives, Texas Senate, the State Board of Education, and Congress into law. The maps, designed to deny voters fair representation and equal say in government, will determine the outcome of the state’s elections for the next decade.