Archives for April 2021

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The nation’s next big voting battle underway in Texas would outlaw 24-hour polling places, drive-thru voting and make it a crime for elections officials to mail unsolicited absentee ballot applications.

Put another way: Everything Houston — the state’s biggest Democratic stronghold — did to expand ballot access last year, when the threat of the coronavirus made voting in-person more hazardous.

Amid a GOP-led campaign to tighten voting laws, Republican lawmakers in in Texas have been unusually explicit in zeroing in on Houston and surrounding Harris County as they push to tighten the state’s voting laws. One of the country’s largest and most racially diverse counties, Harris rolled out new ways to vote in 2020 on a scale like nowhere else in Texas. Although there is no evidence of fraud resulting from votes cast from cars or in the dead of night, Republicans are determined to prevent it from happening again.

The effort is one of the clearest examples of how the GOP’s nationwide campaign to tighten voting laws can target Democrats, even as they insist the measures are not partisan. With Americans increasingly sorted into liberal urban areas and conservative rural ones, geography can be an effective proxy for partisanship. Proposals tailored to cities or that take population into account are bound to have a greater impact on Democratic voters.

That’s likely the case in Georgia, where a new voting law prescribes the number absentee ballot drop boxes per county and uses a formula based on the number of registered voters or early voting sites. Election officials in the Atlanta area have said the change will slash the number of drop boxes available to their voters when compared to 2020 levels.

Texas is the biggest state where Republicans have vowed to make voting changes since Donald Trump’s false claims that fraud cost him the 2020 election. A sweeping package known as House Bill 6 that would tighten voting rules is awaiting a full vote, and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott supports the efforts.

Included in the state House bill are measures that would grant partisan poll watchers wider latitude and make it a felony for an elections officer to send mail-voting applications to households that didn’t request them, as Harris County tried to do because of the pandemic. It also contains elements similar to a state Senate bill that passed its first key vote earlier this month.

The apparent targeting of Harris County, where 44% of the nearly 5 million residents are Latino and 20% are Black, is seen by opponents as evidence that Republicans are trying to suppress minority turnout in Democratic strongholds. Republicans have angrily rejected those accusations, saying the measures would only rein in powers that county leaders never had in the first place.

Not in dispute are the rising electoral stakes in Texas’ biggest county. President Joe Biden won it by more than 13 percentage points, a commanding margin that helped get him within 6 points of Trump statewide.

“The math is simple,” former Harris County elections clerk Chris Hollins said of Democrats’ performance in the Houston area in November. “Their take is, ‘Let’s make it harder for Harris County to vote.’ Even though thousands of Republicans are going to be disenfranchised, too.”

The county exemplifies the GOP’s slipping grip on fast-changing Texas. In 2004, former President George W. Bush, who is from Texas, easily won Harris County and Republicans ran every major countywide office. But recent years have been routs for Democrats, whose wins now extend down the ballot to local judicial races, including 17 Black women who were elected to the bench in 2018.

Criticism has been met with increasing fury by Texas Republicans, particularly as prominent homegrown employers such as American Airlines and Dell have come out against the restrictions. Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who offered a $1 million reward in defense of Trump’s unsupported claims of election irregularities, blasted the airline earlier this month, saying “you are in essence, between the lines, calling us racist, and that will not stand.”

The problem, according to Patrick and other Republicans, is that Harris County never had the authority to expand its voting options, despite the pandemic. “I have news for Harris County: You’re not the capital of Texas,” Patrick said.

A record 1.7 million voters cast ballots in Harris County last year. Hollins said between 10,000 and 15,000 votes were cast at 24-hour locations during the hours when polls are typically closed. Roughly 127,000 people cast ballots from their cars at drive-thru centers, more than half of whom were Black, Latino or Asian, according to state Sen. Carol Alvarado, a Democrat from Houston.

Jared Woodfill, a former Harris County GOP chairman, filed multiple lawsuits against local elections officials last year over the expanded options and said he has been talking with the Republicans behind the two Texas voting bills.

Texas already has some of the tightest voting restrictions in the country and Republicans say rising voter turnout is evidence that votes are not being suppressed — a claim that ignores that the state’s population is booming. Woodfill said the county stepped over the line. He also acknowledges the clout of the Houston area in elections.

“Texas and Harris County are really ground zero for Republicans,” he said.

James Price, 55, voted for Biden at a suburban Houston polling site in November. He gave Biden average marks so far, saying he was disappointed that more wasn’t being done to convince people that coronavirus vaccines are safe. Price, who is Black, said above all, he sees the efforts to restrict voting driven by Republicans who believe the election was stolen.

“I don’t know how it affects what race, community or whatever,” Price said of the proposals. “I’m not going to let any restriction or rule stop me from voting. I’m going to find a way.”

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CLEVELAND (AP) — Following the guidance and advice of Browns center and NFL Players Association President JC Tretter, Cleveland’s players joined a growing list of teams vowing to skip voluntary in-person workouts this offseason.

The Browns followed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Denver Broncos, Seattle Seahawks, Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, New England Patriots and New York Giants in saying they’ll exercise their collectively bargained rights not to take part in the workouts, which were scheduled to begin next week.

The Las Vegas Raiders followed suit later Thursday with their players releasing a statement through the NFLPA that they also wouldn’t participate in the voluntary offseason program.

On Wednesday, the league issued a memo to all 32 teams announcing that the first four weeks of the voluntary program will be virtual before transitioning to in person at the team’s respective training facilities.

Last year, the offseason programs were all done virtually and training camp was pushed back because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Browns players released a statement through the NFLPA saying they are opposed to the idea.

“The NFL’s memo outlining how they plan to implement voluntary workouts falls short of what we as players believe is adequate,” the statement said. “The Cleveland Browns players agree that a virtual offseason, like we had last year, is the best decision for everyone in our league.

“COVID-19 continues to affect our players, our families and our communities, and we must continue to take it seriously. In addition to the ongoing threat of the pandemic, we felt healthier both mentally and physically last year, which we attribute to sufficient recovery time and the lack of additional wear and tear on our bodies during the spring months. The league-wide injury data supports us as well, as NFL players experienced a 23% reduction in missed-time injuries last season.

“For these reasons, we stand in solidarity with players from other clubs by exercising our CBA right to not attend in-person voluntary workouts this offseason. We are professionals who train year-round, wherever we spend our offseason. As we proved last year, we will be ready to compete this upcoming season.”

One of the arguments against the programs used by Tretter, who was elected union president last year as the pandemic hit, is statistics support that less workouts last season led directly to less injuries, including concussions.

Although Browns coach Kevin Stefanski didn’t have an in-person offseason program in his first year in 2020, he managed to overcome the challenge and led Cleveland to its first postseason appearance since the 2002 season.

The Raiders players gave a similar statement, but did leave open some room for players with offseason workout bonuses to participate. The Raiders have nine players, according to the website Over The Cap, who can earn bonuses by participating in the offseason program.

“We respect those players on our team and across the NFL who have contractual incentives linked to their participation in the program, but we stand in solidarity with our fellow players who are making the best decision on behalf of themselves and their families,” the statement from the players said.

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AP Pro Football Writer Josh Dubow contributed to this report.

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