Have the Republicans done just about everything they can to put up obstacles to voting in Texas. Hell yes. Is it still easy to vote in Texas? Hell yes.
The last 24 hours have been full of hand-wringing and ‘tsk, ‘tsk-ing about the voting process in Texas. From the tone of some of the (wildly inaccurate) posts on Twitter about limiting Drop Boxes, you’d think there was only one voting place in all of Harris County for 2.4 million registered voters. (I literally read some post where a well-meaning imbecile actually did the math of how long it would take for 2.4 million voters to drop a ballot at a single box. Oy!)
The fact is, despite many unnecessary obstacles created by Texas Republicans, Texas has one of the most accessible voting systems in the country. As an election judge in Dallas County, I think I’m in a pretty good position to talk about the system. And there so much misinformation on social media right now about Texas voting, that you’d think the Russian bots were at it again, trying to discourage turnout.
Let me explain:
First, I’ll start by acknowledging some of the things Republicans have done in the past few years to discourage liberals and Democrats from voting in Texas:
- Refusing to allow “no excuse” voting by mail in the 2020 cycle — the only state that has done so
- Passing a photo ID law — inconveniencing people who don’t have a driver’s license, although there are at least 20 alternate ID methods that a voter can use
- Eliminating straight ticket voting — which causes a double whammy of potentially missed down ballot selections AND (just as important) take way more time to complete the ballots and adding to wait times (unfortunately, in Texas our ballots are VERY long due to lots of judicial races).
- Limiting the number of Drop Boxes to one per county — forcing mail in voters to trust the USPS in some cases vs. making a bit of a drive
- Instituting stricter rules for voter registration — both in terms of requirements and the deadlines.
- Etc., Etc., Etc.
Despite all these measures (and helped by a one week expansion of in person early voting this year due to the pandemic), it’s still very, very easy to vote in Texas, at least in the major counties like Harris (Houston), Dallas, Tarrant (Ft. Worth), Bexar (San Antonio), Travis (Austin), Hidalgo (Rio Grande Valley), etc.
- Voting rules in each county are set by the elected voting official — in the metro counties, those are ALL Democrats, so they can (and do) try to ameliorate the obstacles. Republicans are suing their asses off trying to stop some of the more creative approaches (see number 5 below)
- The major Texas Counties all have county-wide in person early voting and most have county-wide “day of” voting. What does that mean? Precincts are a thing of the past. Any resident can vote anywhere in the county that has a voting center (that’s what we used to call precincts)
- There are hundreds of voting centers in the largest counties, like Harris (Houston), which are open from 7:00am to 7:00pm weekdays and Saturdays and 1:00pm to 6:00pm on Sundays from now until Friday, October 30th
- Major cities — in cooperation with the NBA — have set up “Super Voting Centers” at their arenas, which have tons of parking and upwards of 60 voting machines each. You may even get to see an NBA player or coach at one.
- In Harris County, there is even a Drive-Through voting center where voters don’t even need to leave their vehicles
- There are dozens of alternative ways for a voter without a drivers license to comply with the state’s Voter ID law, all the way down to showing a utility bill or student ID. There is all kinds of information available about acceptable forms of ID in Texas.
- Most of the big counties have “wait time” dashboards available by web and mobile app to guide voters to the shortest lines.
- If you DID get a mail ballot, there’s always the mailbox; there are THREE WEEKS left. Trust our USPS employees
All things considered, it’s clear that the system is working, despite a few hiccups:
- Texans are used to in-person early voting;
- in 2016 the general elections of 2016 (Clinton vs. Trump), early ballots made up 46% of all votes
- In 2018 (Beto O’Rourke vs. Ted Cruz), 40% of all ballots were cast early
- On Tuesday, October 13th (the first day of in-person early voting), about 750,000 people voted in person statewide (that’s in one day folks)!
- Even with that ridiculous “One Drop Box” rule, another 365,000 plus mail in ballots were received by the same day.
- That’s over one million recorded votes a full three weeks before election day — about 10% of the total votes in 2016.
Is the Texas system perfect? No. Does it totally make up for Republican obstruction? No. Were there some hiccups and long lines on day one? Yes. But many of the stories about long lines are the result of self-inflicted wounds, not voter suppression.
- We understand there is a ton of Democratic enthusiasm in metro areas (and Republican enthusiasm in small towns and rural communities). But how niave is it to show up on the very first day of 18 days of early voting and not expect to find crowds? It’s not like this is Black Friday and if you’re not there at zero dark thirty you’ll miss the 65 inch tv for $249. The ballot is the same EVERY day, including on Election Day itself.
- There have been some technical glitches reported. That’s understandable. The “county-wide” system uses electronic polling books which we first utilized in 2019. They require a wireless cell connection to the cloud database of all 1.3 million Dallas County registered voters, so that we know who has voted regardless of where they cast their ballot (the database is updated in real time). There are also WiFi links and other technology at work, so things CAN go down.
- The combination of new voting technology plus a corps of long-time, elderly poll workers is a recipe for problems. I’m 64 myself and don’t want to sound too ageist, but when I sat in the first training class for the new system in 2019, and listened to the befuddled questions of some retirees, I thought to myself “this is not good”. (Fortunately, one thing Dallas County has done is encourage the hiring of Student Election Clerks — what 18 year old kid isn’t extremely savvy with technology? — mine have been stellar and very helpful.)
Despite a few problems and some unfortunate long lines on day one, the bottom line is this: There is no excuse for anyone in a major Texas city who doesn’t vote in 2020 — during the 200+ hours of in-person early voting, or the 12 hours of day-off voting — at ANY voting center in their county. If that’s not enough opportunity, that person either is too lazy to make the effort or just doesn’t care.
Sorry, but at some point individuals need to take responsibility for their own actions, instead of blaming “the system”.
As Michelle Obama said: “Pack a lunch. Bring a lawn chair and a book. Wear a mask. But VOTE!