Before I say anything else: If you are from Texas, check your voter registration right now. Especially if you used Vote.org to register to vote. Why?
With the Kavanaugh distraction, right-wing officials at the Secretary of State identified a great time to do this:
More than 2,000 potential voters in Texas had their voters’ registration applications unfairly rejected by the Texas Secretary of State, a national advocacy group said Wednesday.
October 9 is the deadline for registering new voters in Texas.
Although Texas is a sea of red, there are distinct blue areas around the urban centers: Dallas County (Dallas), Bexar County (San Antonio), and Travis County (Austin). There's also Cameron County, which is the southernmost county in Texas, right next to the border. (The Texas Tribune has an interactive map of the red and blue counties.)
These blue areas are the counties where the applications were rejected.
State officials claimed the rejections were due to voter registration applications using digital photographs of their signatures. The Secretary of State officials insist that signatures must be handwritten.
Which is a load of b.s.
Lawyers for Vote.org disagree with the Secretary of State’s interpretation and say they “reserve all rights to challenge it.” They say there is nothing in the election code requiring a handwritten signature.
In fact, the Texas election code, which was written before the internet age, states that signatures are allowed ”by telephonic facsimile machine,” as long as it is “in writing and signed by the applicant.” So there goes that excuse.
If you think 2400 won’t make much of a difference, please scroll through a few counties on that interactive map. Small counties here in Florida still have over 10,000 people voting, but look at all of those counties that had under 1000 people—total. In four Texas counties, not one person showed up to vote in the Democratic primary.
In fact, voter turnout in Texas ranks dead last in America. It’s nice to see the GOP is doing its part to keep it that way.