'Racist Voter Suppression': Texas Laws Keep Latinos From the Ballot Box, Groups Say

By Suzanne Gamboa, NBC News

03 October 20

As the state sees more Latino eligible voters, it keeps making it harder to register and to vote, Latino legal and civil rights organizations say.

he coronavirus pandemic could challenge Latino voter turnout this year, and voting advocates say it just adds to the barriers intentionally enacted to keep Latinos and voters of color from casting their ballots.

“Texas has a long history; it’s the state that has the most pronounced, overt, racist voter suppression tactics that we know of,” said Lydia Camarillo, president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, formed in 1974 when Mexican Americans still were being kept from voting. 

Latinos are almost 40 percent of the population and are on track to be the state's largest population group by next year. Latino turnout has been rising, but those trying to ramp up the bloc's voting in the state must each year overcome laws and measures that play a role in keeping them from voting.

Of more than 15,000 Covid-19 deaths in Texas so far, 56.1 percent are Hispanics and 30.1 percent are whites.

But Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has refused to expand its mail-in voting to accommodate people concerned about being exposed to the virus when they go to the polls.

Abbott did expand early voting by six days, but others in his party are suing to prevent that expansion.

Abbott went further by announcing the shutdown of satellite locations for Texans allowed to vote by mail. He is allowing one drop-off box per county — a move, he said, that would protect the integrity of the elections and stop illegal voting.

The announcement drew immediate criticism and a lawsuit filed by the League of United Latin American Citizens.

The governor’s decision will have a big impact in Texas’ large urban counties, where Democrats have been winning, including in Harris County, the nation’s third most populous county.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo slammed the governor’s decision, noting that the county for which she serves as the chief elected official is bigger than the state of Rhode Island. “This isn’t security, it’s suppression,” she said in a tweet.

Harris County is bigger than the state of Rhode Island, and we're supposed to have 1 site? This isn't security, it's suppression. Mail ballot voters shouldn't have to drive 30 miles to drop off their ballot, or rely on a mail system that’s facing cutbacks. https://t.co/IeKwzdB0Hb

— Lina Hidalgo (@LinaHidalgoTX) October 1, 2020

If Texas wanted to facilitate broad participation, it would ensure remote and early voting were widely available, along with multiple, convenient and broadly available polling places, said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel for Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

“That is not what Texas is doing,” Saenz said. “That’s for a reason. Texas authorities know they are suppressing the vote.”

"The infrastructure of suppression"

Texas’ history of disenfranchising voters — from holding whites-only primaries, to barring people from voting based on whether they speak English, to outright intimidation and closing voting locations in minority locations — was so notorious that for years the state had to get Department of Justice approval for any election changes under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

There’s no question that Latinos’ youth and the population’s disparities in education and income are factors in voter turnout. Younger people are less likely to show up at the polls. Voters who do, often are more educated and have higher incomes, Saenz said.

But Texas Latinos’ voter registration is lower than that of Hispanics in other parts of the country, so demography and disparities aren’t the only explanation. “Given Texas’ history, you have to believe some of that is obviously linked to race,” he said.

In 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, and within hours, Texas imposed a strict Voter ID law. As an example, it allows only certain forms of ID — such as a gun permit — but not a college identification card, which is what many young voters have. An early version of the law was found to deliberately discriminate against Blacks and Latinos.

“For 144 years, Texas has perfected the science of suppressing voters at the ballot box,” Beto O’Rourke, a former presidential candidate and former congressman, said in a recent virtual Democratic event. Its preference for gun permits over college IDs is part of an “infrastructure of suppression,” he said.

Without the federal government oversight, the state became a national leader in reductions of polling sites, according to a study by The Leadership Conference Education Fund.

Last year, the state tried to purge its rolls of tens of thousands of voters based on flawed Texas drivers’ license data. The attempted purging followed a year in which Latinos had doubled their turnout at the polls. Although the state was stopped, the tactic may have terrorized some voters fearful of doing the wrong thing into skipping voting, Saenz said.