Texas Democrats

Below is a statement from Texas Democratic Party Chair Boyd Richie on passage of HB 218 in the State House last night.  HB 218 would require voters to present, in addition to a legitimate voter registration card, a photo ID or two forms of non-photo ID to vote.  The legislation, which is opposed by AARP, would prove especially difficult for seniors and disabled individuals, many of whom do not have a drivers license.

"In America, voting is a right, not a privilege granted only to certain groups of people who Republicans deem worthy.  With the passage of this discriminatory voter ID bill, Republicans in the Texas House have launched a direct assault on the most fundamental right in our democracy, the right to vote. Republicans are blatantly trampling over the voting rights of millions of elderly, disabled, poor and minority Texans, who are less likely to carry photo ID-and more likely to vote Democratic.

In order to justify disenfranchising millions of voters, Republicans have presented this bill under the false pretense of stopping an "epidemic" of voter fraud and non-citizen voting. But the only kind of "fraud" HB 218 could possibly address is "voter impersonation," and neither the Secretary of State nor Attorney General Greg Abbott has produced a single complaint or case involving voter impersonation in Texas. In fact, Abbott's trumped up "voter-fraud" campaign led to only 13 indictments, all of which were related to mail ballots and would not be affected by HB 218.

This voter ID legislation is part of a state-by-state partisan agenda orchestrated by national Republicans with the clear intent of suppressing voter participation among groups of voters who traditionally vote Democratic, the same agenda that has led to the politicization of a scandal-ridden Justice Department. And after losing six State House seats and two Congressional seats in the last election, Texas Republicans have launched a partisan political attack on the voters that rejected their failed agenda at the polls.  

Republicans are using voter ID legislation to send Texas back to 19^th Century Jim Crow laws and poll taxes.  Instead of pursuing a shameful agenda of exclusion that belongs in the past, the State Legislature should be working to make voting easier and more accessible and to encourage all Texans to participate and exercise their right to vote."