Texas GOP Still trying To Suppress Voting

Republicans in Texas haven't been too successful at trying to rig the elections by suppressing votes this year. They tried to make sure only Republicans could get elected by drawing discriminatory congressional district lines, but a federal court saw through that and tossed out those districts. Now they'll have to start all over next January.

Then they tried passing a Voter ID law that would favor GOP voters and disenfranchise many Democratic voters (under the guise of preventing voter fraud, which they couldn't even prove was happening). A different federal court tossed that out also, saying it discriminated against minority voters. But they haven't given up yet. One thing you can say about Texas Republicans is that they are determined, and when they decide to suppress voting in the state they won't stop until they've tried everything.

Now they're using faulty records to claim many voters are deceased, and lopping them off the voter rolls (in the hope that many of them won't be able to get back on by election day. But State Democratic Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa is having none of it. He has written to the Texas Secretary of State and demanded this stop -- and is threatening to once again go back to court to stop the GOP voter suppression. Here is the letter he sent to the Secretary of State:

The Honorable Hope Andrade
Thomas J. Rusk Building
208 East 10th Street, 3rd Floor
Austin, Texas 78701
BY EMAIL, FACSIMILE, AND USPS

Dear Secretary Andrade,

I have been hearing troubling reports from around the state and described in the attached news article regarding voters who have received letters telling them that they are dead when they are in fact very much alive. I am very disturbed that your office instructed local voter registrars to send over 80,000 of such letters so close to an election using what appears to be faulty data. If this problem had gone undetected, thousands of eligible voters could have been disenfranchised. 

Can you please confirm for me that the decision by Harris County to not actually purge these voters from the voter registration list is the policy throughout the state? What measures is your office taking to ensure that every county voter registrar complies with this policy and that no voters who were included in that faulty list of over 80,000 are removed from the voter rolls? What procedures are to be followed if a voter has already been removed from the rolls due to faulty “deceased” data and shows up to vote?

Please respond to this request in writing without delay. I am hopeful that your office is doing its due diligence to correct this problem. If not, the Texas Democratic Party will not hesitate to take legal action to ensure that live, eligible voters will not be deprived of their right to vote.

Yours,

Gilberto Hinojosa
Chair
Texas Democratic Party

I'm liking the new chairman more all the time. He's not going to roll over for this kind of Republican nonsense.