Gov. Abbot is making brazen authoritarian moves in Texas.
“The Texas Army National Guard said Monday it had been ordered to dispatch 1,000 troops to five major cities around the state in conjunction with the Nov. 3 election, including San Antonio. The guard in recent weeks had told the San Antonio Express-News that its commander, Maj. Gen. Tracy Norris, had been asked to draft contingency plans in case of trouble at polling places in major cities around the state.”
It’s hard to imagine a world, as a Texas resident, where Gov. Abbot was trying to protect people from say, right wing Militia or violence at the polls. There’s no current order to put them at polling places, but why else would Abbot want them there if not to hand Texas to Trump by force if things start to look like they might be shifting? At a minimum, this is state-sponsored voter intimidation.
We may need an influx of new legal observers in Texas.
This could be a massive authoritarian power grab, and Texans have little recourse. With Republicans increasingly showing their authoritarian, fascist ideology, and in control of every major lever of power in Texas, they could easily send these armed soldiers against citizens to suppress our right to vote. Imagine if they simply decide to *end* voting on the day “due to the pandemic”. Or imagine if they start to pull citizens out of line to check “for fraud”.
We have seen the national guard already operate adjacent to state and federal law enforcement that has beaten, maimed, and even killed peaceful protesters. Can we trust them to keep their oath to the Constitution if they are ordered to “deal with” voters in Democratic strongholds?
ACLU of Texas
Texas Secretary of State