Officially, a new Texas electoral law aims to make elections safer based on unfounded allegations of massive fraud in the 2020 presidential election. In fact, she is accused of restricting the voting rights of minorities. The Texas parliament, with a Republican majority, adopted this controversial electoral law on Tuesday, August 31. State Governor Greg Abbott said in a statement he would enact it.
This text notably prohibits voting in “Drive-in” and introduced numerous restrictions on voting times and postal voting. For the detractors of the text, these restrictions mainly target provisions facilitating the voting of minorities, in particular African-Americans, generally more favorable to the Democrats.
Defection of the Democrats to avoid voting for this text
Since January, at least eighteen states have passed 30 restrictive election laws and dozens more are under review, according to think tank Brennan Center for Justice. This process has accelerated in the Republican States against the backdrop of accusations, never demonstrated, of massive electoral fraud hammered out by Donald Trump since the presidential election of November 2020.
About fifty elected Democrats from Texas fled this state in mid-July to prevent its House of Representatives from reaching the minimum number of elected officials to put the law to a vote (quorum).
But the governor called two special sessions in a row and the Democrats gradually returned, finally achieving a quorum on August 19. The law was thus debated and adopted on Tuesday.