With voter participation rapidly decreasing, Texas has seen a quite a surprising turnout in early voting for it own senatorial race. Texas has always had a very low voter turnout rate compared to other southern states averaging in the mid 20’s. This rapid surge in new voters came from Texas minorities, which was lead by Battleground Texas. According to their website Battleground Texas goal is to register as many voters as possible (Battleground Texas) which would include the 6 million voters that are currently unregistered (Texas Secretary of State). With such a large percentage of the population not voting Battleground Texas has focused on the mobilization of these voters. As Texas holds about 20 million potential voters a 20% turnout rate is not what Battleground Texas has been hoping to see. So how has voter turnout increased up to 11,000 in some counties and Harris, Dallas , Tarrant, Travis and Berent increase by over 300,000 since 2012 (Roth)?
Texas has always had very strict voter ID laws, these are meant to stop impersonations at the polls come election day. According to this new law voters must now show one of seven forms of ID, including ex military verification, Drivers licence, Passport, Concealed Gun Card or a state issued ID. However low income voters like African Americans or Latinos are less likely to have these forms of ID’s according to several estimates, and some aren't even able to produce a Birth Certificate. Lets take the elderly African American grandmother who couldn't afford the 25 dollar birth certificate, or the elderly Veteran who doesn't have the proper forms of Texas ID but has still voted in the past with several other forms of valid ID . Under Texas's new law they will be turned down at the polls for insufficient voter verification. These forms of voter ID laws not only discourage the mobilization of minority voters they also make it extremely difficult to register in and of itself, because of this new law minority voters like the grandmother who couldn't afford her birth certificate will now have to pay money in order to obtain a birth certificate in order to obtain a license in order to show to officials when registering then in order to voter. This is all incredibly concerning, because of the 16 states that have implemented these laws, all have has extremely discriminatory against their minorities. With voter turnout so low such a high level of unregistered voters Texas republicans have been winning by large amounts in the previous years, which is concerning due to their major effort to implement voter restrictions on over the 6 million voter who now will likely have to pay money they can't afford to vote (Childress)
Battleground Texas however has lobbied against such laws, the democratic group which wants to turn Texas inside out has on several occasions cited the Supreme Courts ruling on this law as discriminatory. Voter registration is a key front in which several Texans have seen difficulty, for instance you must be born in Texas in order to register through the mail, if you are not you are assigned a county must wait the given time and then hand in your ballot in person and not by mail, along with going to training lessons provided by the state. To add fuel to the fire if you do register and don't hand in your registration forms within five days its a criminal offense. Battleground Texas however has set up community drives in order to help minority voters register safely and legally, which in recent years like this mobilized thousands of minority voters, but has seen fierce opposition from Texas lawmakers (Roth). Voter restrictions have obviously benefited Republican representatives in the long run in Texas, in a recent vote count after a vast mobilization of Texas voters democrat Wendy Davis has shot out in front of the Texas Senatorial race (Roth), which may raise a few eyebrows because not only is Texas the prime example for voting Republican it has also restricted millions of minority voters from ever having a say. Which in the end is extremely disturbing, because in a modern democracy not allowing citizens to vote with proper identification like the war veteran in Texas, and making most pay for documentation they can't afford only to go through an extremely bureaucratic process in which they can be arrested or fined for as much as not sending in their papers within 5 days is not supporting democratic values at all, but discouraging them entirely.
Work Cited
Roth, Zachary. "After push to mobilize new voters, turnout surges in Texas." After push to mobilize
new voters, turnout surges in Texas. Last modified October 21, 2014. Accessed October 24, 2014.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/after-push-mobilize-new-voters-turnout-surges-texas.
Battleground Texas. "About Us." Battleground Texas. Accessed October 24, 2014.
http://www.battlegroundtexas.com/pages/about.
Texas Secretary of State. "Turnout and Voter Registration Figures (1970-current)." Texas Secretary
of State. Accessed October 24, 2014. http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/
70-92.shtml.
Childress, Sarah. "Why Voter ID Laws Aren’t Really about Fraud." PBS. Last modified October 20,
2014. Accessed October 24, 2014. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/
government-elections-politics/why-voter-id-laws-arent-really-about-fraud/.
Roth, Zachary. "Battleground Texas: Inside the fight to turn the state blue." Battleground Texas:
Inside the fight to turn the state blue. Last modified June 5, 2014. Accessed October 24, 2014.
http://www.msnbc.com/melissa-harris-perry/the-fight-turn-texas-blue.
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