Friday, 27 August 2021 (YJC)_ The Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives has advanced a new restrictive voting bill after months of protests by Democrats.
The Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives has advanced a new restrictive voting bill after months of protests by Democrats that were slammed by Gov. Gregg Abbott as inflicting "harm on the very Texans who elected them to serve", reported The Texas Tribune.
The almost 50-page bill that contains a raft of changes to the state’s election code passed the Texas House on a 79-37 mostly party-line vote.
Among other things, it prohibits 24-hour and drive-through voting, blocks local election officials from sending out absentee ballot applications to voters who don’t request one, and states that partisan poll watchers appointed by campaigns and political parties cannot be denied “free movement” at voting sites.
Now the bill moves to the Texas senate, which has already passed a similar version, after which it will go to the desk of Texas governor Greg Abbott, who has vowed to swiftly approve it.
Democrats hoping to stall a GOP-sponsored restrictive election bill ended a 38-day walkout on 19 August, allowing the legislature to reach a quorum, after a week earlier the Republican-led state Senate passed their version of the voting bill after a 15-hour filibuster by one of the Senate's leading Democrats. Sen. Carol Alvardo.
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