WASHINGTON — Today, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law S.B. 1, an election bill that imposes new, extensive voting restrictions on Texas residents. Robert Brandon, the President of the Fair Elections Center, responded:
“The mass voting restrictions signed into Texas law are a direct assault on American freedoms and the ideals of our nation’s democracy. While voter fraud has been proven extremely rare over and over again, the governor and members of the state legislature have continued to leverage false claims of election fraud to advance a clear partisan agenda.
“Texas already has some of the strictest voting laws in the entire country. This law adds even further obstacles to mail voting, expands election-related criminal offenses, increases the access and power of partisan poll watchers, and explicitly gets rid of measures that were introduced to help more Texans vote. None of these measures are necessary for ensuring safe and secure elections. These provisions will instead serve to extensively disenfranchise Texas’ most marginalized voters, including people of color, people with disabilities, young voters and the elderly.
“Without the U.S. Congress swiftly passing federal voting rights protections, we’ll continue to see substantial and growing voter disenfranchisement in our nation’s coming elections. Congress has a fundamental responsibility to defend the freedom of the American people to vote. It must use all of its power to do so, even if that means ending the filibuster. It has never been more urgent for elected officials to properly protect the voting rights of the people they represent.”
