On Wednesday, we brought you the story about voting machines in Dallas County not performing well in routine tests, making tabulation errors and zeroing-out the overall vote totals by mistake. Since these machines “passed” anyway and will be put back into service regardless of their inaccuracy, there’s speculation that this is part of a plan to “steal Texas,” which is still a red state but getting less so with the growth of blue cities and the impact of immigration. Oh, and all those Californians moving in don’t help (Gov. Abbott has been criticized from the right for soliciting Silicon Valley businesses to relocate there without considering that their employees are not refugees from California but colonizers.)
Today, there’s more from Texas. Take a look at this discussion of what forms of ID are acceptable (non-citizens’ driver’s licenses??) in various situations, and you’ll see the kind of legal hairsplitting that’s going on all over the country. Your eyes will start to cross, I’m telling you.
As it currently stands, a person with a non-citizens’ driver’s license or ID, then they may still vote in Texas by provisional ballot. If a person with a non-citizen’s drivers license or ID tries to vote “and the election judge or clerk has reason to believe that the person is not a United States citizen, the election judge or clerk may bring this to the attention of the county voter registrar.”
But how would the election judge or clerk necessarily know?
In September, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton urged Secretary of State Jane Nelson to request citizenship data from the federal government to determine the eligibility of registered voters with “uncertain” citizenship status. Nelson wrote Paxton back this week, saying the Biden-Harris administration hadn’t yet sent the requested citizenship information. Well, of course they hadn’t.
So Paxton wrote to them himself. Results are, as they say, pending.
In August, Paxton also opened an investigation into organizations allegedly registering non-citizens to vote. As reported by JUST THE NEWS, multiple non-profit organizations ever-so-helpfully operate booths outside the Texas Department of Public Safety Driver’s License Offices to assist with voter registration. Isn’t that already done inside the building?
So, here’s the situation in Texas: Last month, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that over 1 million ineligible voters have been removed from the voter rolls, including more than 6,500 non-citizens. Of those non-citizens, 1,930 had actually VOTED. Paxton’s office will be investigating that.
There’s good news out of Tennessee, where we’ve learned that residents of six counties affected by Hurricane Helene will be able to vote either absentee or in person, though some of the polling places might be different. Early voting starts next week. People who lost ballots that had already been mailed to them, or who still need one, can contact their local elections office.
Just remember, if people in Tennessee and Western North Carolina (not to mention Florida) can manage to vote sometime in the next few weeks, so can we all. If there weren’t already enough reasons to vote this time, here’s one more: we owe it to those who are working so hard to vote in spite of Mother Nature.
More great news, this from Arizona, where the state GOP has brought in a heavy-hitter to help with their “Protect the Vote” election integrity operation: attorney Harmeet Dhillon.
AXIOS criticized this, saying it might “signal the Republicans’ intent to take a more aggressive approach to elections in Arizona, where election denialism has run rampant and former President Trump’s MAGA base has clamored for showdowns over election policies and procedures.” (Actually, Harmeet is just one sharp attorney who will be anticipating and handling attempts to depart from fairness and legality. We need that.)
Arizona GOP chair Gina Swoboda took exception with AXIOS’ snideness, telling them that “Dhillon’s new role shouldn’t necessarily be taken as a sign that Republicans will be more litigious or go on offense regarding election issues in Arizona, saying the party is ‘taking an aggressively defensive posture.’” She also said that Dhillon’s appointment is “a sign that Trump knows how important Arizona is.”
Isn’t it hilarious when DEMOCRATS accuse REPUBLICANS of being aggressive in court?
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