Biden Administration Sues Texas Over New Voting Law

By Associated Press
November 5, 2021

The Biden medication connected Thursday sued Texas implicit caller predetermination laws that outlasted a summertime of melodramatic protests by Democrats, who stay incapable successful Congress to walk authorities they accidental is needed to counteract a twelvemonth of Republicans adding restrictive voting measures nationwide.

The suit does not spell aft the entirety of a sweeping measure signed successful September by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott successful Texas, which already has immoderate of the nation's toughest voting rules. Instead, the situation filed successful a San Antonio national tribunal targets provisions surrounding mail-in voting requirements and elector assistance, which the Justice Department argues interruption national civilian rights protections.

It present puts 2 of the Texas GOP's biggest blimpish victories this twelvemonth successful tribunal against the national government, arsenic the Justice Department is simultaneously trying to halt a caller Texas instrumentality that has banned astir abortions since September.

Opponents of the Texas instrumentality known arsenic Senate Bill 1 had already sued the state, accusing Republicans of mounting retired to disenfranchise minorities and different Democratic-leaning voters. The measure specifically targets Democratic strongholds, and was followed by Abbott weeks aboriginal signing caller voting maps that fortify the GOP's slipping dominance amid the state's explosive growth.

Abbott and different Texas Republicans accidental the changes supply safeguards against elector fraud.

“Biden is coming aft Texas for SB1, our precocious enacted predetermination integrity law,” Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tweeted. "It’s a large and a much-needed bill. Ensuring Texas has safe, secure, and transparent elections is simply a apical precedence of mine. I volition spot you successful court, Biden!"

Under the caller Texas law, radical assisting voters who request assistance completing their ballot indispensable instrumentality a longer oath that present includes acknowledging a punishment of perjury. It besides removes aged connection astir answering voters' questions, which opponents accidental volition harm voters with disabilities.

Mail-in ballots indispensable besides present see a driver's licence fig oregon the past 4 digits of a Social Security number, which the Justice Department says raises the chances of ballots being wrongly rejected and excluding immoderate eligible voters.

Texas is among astatine slightest 18 states that person enacted caller voting restrictions since the 2020 election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. The laws are portion of a nationalist GOP campaign, including successful Florida, Georgia and Arizona, to tighten voting laws successful the sanction of security.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.