“Gov. Abbott is out of control and is defunding an entire co-equal branch of the state government because Texas Democrats effectively stopped key pieces of his far-right legislative priorities this session — including his voter suppression bill, SB 7,” Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa told CNN in a statement on Wednesday.
The measure would make mail-in voting more difficult by requiring voters to supply more information, prohibiting local elections officials from sending absentee ballot applications to anyone who has not requested one or from working with get-out-the-vote groups that are encouraging Texans to vote by mail.
Additionally, it would prohibit the after-hours and drive-thru options that voting rights advocates said helped Black and Latino voters in the Houston area cast their ballots in the 2020 election. SB 7 would also make it easier to overturn an election, allowing courts to throw out results if enough ballots were cast illegally that it could have made a difference — rather than proving that fraud actually altered the outcome of a race.
