Tuesday, March 16, 2021

When The Objective Is Simple, The People Are Getting Screwed

Other counties, including Hidalgo County on the border, sent applications to request a mail-in ballot to voters 65 and older who automatically qualify to vote by mail under the state’s tight eligibility rules. But Texas Republicans’ ire fell on Harris County when it moved to send applications to all 2.4 million registered voters in the county with instructions on how to determine if they were eligible for mail-in voting. The Texas Supreme Court ultimately blocked that effort.

The county also fought back against Republican efforts to toss out nearly 127,000 votes cast during early voting at the county’s 10 drive-thru polling places. State and federal courts rejected Republicans’ broader efforts to challenge the validity of the novel voting mechanism, though the county ultimately shuttered nine of those locations on Election Day because of continued legal challenges. Ten percent of Harris County's in-person early voters cast their ballots at the county’s drive-thru locations.

Harris County also set up several days of extended early voting hours. Its 122 early voting sites stayed open until 10 p.m. — three hours past their usual 7 p.m. closing time — for three days, and the county offered 24-hour voting at eight locations for one day.

The context here is that Gov. Absent was in Houston (Harris County) on Monday to announce his push to “protect the integrity” of Texas elections.  While there, he said this:

"Our objective is very simple," Abbott said. "And that is to ensure that every eligible voter gets to vote. It's also to ensure that only eligible are the ones that count at the ballot box. The integrity of elections in 2020 were questioned right here in Harris County with the mail-in ballot application process." Tired of ads? Want to support our progressive journalism? Click to learn more. Later in the press conference, Abbott was asked how "voter fraud influenced election results" in the 2020 Texas elections.

He admitted he knew of no fraud in the 2020 elections. And all Harris County (and other counties) tried to do was to ensure every eligible voter, voted.  Their actions were upheld by state courts.  There was no evidence, indication, or hint that voter fraud occurred as a result of what Harris County did.  And, significantly, there seems to be no proposal to change Texas’ mail-in voting laws, which the Texas Supreme Court actually liberalized (oddly, nobody is complaining about that).  

And, oops:

They're really hoping nobody in Texas is paying attention. Odds are, they're right.  I mean, I agree with theWaPo editorial board: But honestly, the catalyst is going to be how the Lege fixes, or doesn't, ERCOT and the Texas electrical grid.  The pressure for that is going to come from voters but, more importantly( to the Lege), from businesses. Elon Musk may build giant batteries he hopes will keep his offices and factories opened in the next deep freeze, but how many businesses, and their employees, want to live, or keep living, in a third-world country?

This is the visceral issue in Texas politics right now; which is why Gov. Absent and Lite Guv Patrick Crazy want to talk about anything else (Patrick shoved an idiotic bill through the Senate he runs ordering a rollback of the excessive fees charged during the storm.  Even if the House were to pass it, how, exactly, would it work?  Nobody knows, including the senators who voted for it. Patrick is in a round room trying to shit in the corner.  It’s that, or go blind.) How long these conditions prevail in Austin this session is anybody’s guess.
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