Tag Archives: voter registration

Fraudit fizzling

Posted on January 3, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

Who could have ever predicted this would be a big ol’ nothingburger? The Texas secretary of state’s office has released the first batch of results from its review into the 2020 general election, finding few issues despite repeated, unsubstantiated claims … Continue reading →

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How’s that online voter registration thing going?

Posted on December 28, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Pretty well, it seems. So well, perhaps, that the state of Texas doesn’t want to tell you how well. Since a federal judge forced Texas nearly a year and a half ago to offer limited online voter registration, 1.5 million … Continue reading →

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From the “Keeping track of all these lawsuits is hard” department

Posted on December 22, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Spotted on Democracy Docket: Today, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas denied a motion to dismiss Vote.org v. Callanen. The case, filed earlier this summer, challenges Texas’ “wet signature” law that requires individuals who submit … Continue reading →

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The botched “non-citizen” voter purge continues

Posted on December 21, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

At some point we need to recognize the fact that our Secretary of State’s office is completely, and maybe maliciously, inept at doing this. Texas’ last attempt to scour its voting rolls for noncitizens two years ago quickly devolved into … Continue reading →

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We continue to register more voters

Posted on November 30, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Seventeen million and counting. Texas has surpassed 17 million registered voters for the first time, continuing a pace that is reshaping the state’s electorate so rapidly that even the politicians cannot keep up. Despite a series of new election regulations … Continue reading →

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2021 Day Five EV report: A one week checkin

Posted on October 24, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

One work week, anyway. Here are the vote totals after five days of early voting. The first thing to notice is that about 70% of the votes cast so far have been by mail: Mail ballots = 36,517 Early in … Continue reading →

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The Women’s March, the next generation

Posted on October 4, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

I look forward to a day when these aren’t necessary, but in the meantime I am grateful to all who cared enough to participate or were there in spirit. A crowd of more than 10,000 turned out Saturday in downtown … Continue reading →

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A kinder, gentler voter purge

Posted on September 19, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

How nice. Two years after Texas officials fumbled an effort to double-check the voting rolls on a hunt for non-citizens — and instead threatened the voting rights of nearly 60,000 eligible Texans — similar efforts to purge non-citizen voters are … Continue reading →

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Final settlement in Motor Voter 2.0 lawsuit

Posted on August 4, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

From Democracy Docket: Last Friday, individual Texan voters, the Texas Democratic Party, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) settled a five-year long lawsuit with Texas over its noncompliance with the National Voter Registration … Continue reading →

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Here are your new SB7s

Posted on July 9, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

We start with the House. The Texas House is starting off on a new foot on the contentious elections proposal that blew up the regular legislative session. As a special session reviving the Republican-priority bill got underway Thursday, there were … Continue reading →

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Chron story on Odus Evbagharu

Posted on July 1, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Some good stuff here. When Odus Evbagharu, a 28-year-old legislative staffer and campaign organizer, took the reins of the Harris County Democratic Party Sunday evening, he inherited a party that stands on some of its firmest footing in years, despite … Continue reading →

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First post-legislative session voting rights lawsuit filed

Posted on June 28, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Surely not the last. In a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, a Latino civil rights group and a voting rights group say a bill signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott last week that prevents Texans from using a commerical … Continue reading →

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You can announce any time now, Beto

Posted on June 22, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Sunday at your rally would have been a good time, but honestly I’m not too picky about that. About three weeks after Texas Democrats staged a dramatic walkout to temporarily kill a GOP-led voting restrictions bill, dozens of the party’s … Continue reading →

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Beto’s still doing his thing

Posted on June 15, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

I’m still hoping it will turn into another thing. More than just the Houston heat fired up the crowd at voting rights rally Sunday, where former Congressman Beto O’Rourke urged action against a restrictive bills being championed by Republicans. “I … Continue reading →

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The next voter registration project

Posted on June 10, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Necessary, but not sufficient. Texas Democrats’ takeaways from the 2020 election are clear: to take back our state from Texas Republicans, Democrats need to register more voters. With Republicans’ increasing extremism and relentless attacks on Texans this spring, the stakes … Continue reading →

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SOS Hughs resigns

Posted on May 24, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

In retrospect, I should have seen this coming. Texas Secretary of State Ruth Ruggero Hughs announced Friday she will step down from her post as the state’s top elections official, less than two years into her term. The decision comes … Continue reading →

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The voting location restrictions of SB7

Posted on May 24, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

As Michael Li said on Twitter, this is breathtaking, and not at all in a good way. The number of Election Day polling places in largely Democratic parts of major Texas counties would fall dramatically under a Republican proposal to … Continue reading →

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Trying to make the sausage less bad

Posted on May 20, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

RG Ratcliffe walsk us through some bipartisan negotiations on HB6, the House version of the big Senate voter suppression bill, as three Democrats who want to make this bad bill slightly less bad work with a couple of Republicans who … Continue reading →

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Making voting worse

Posted on April 22, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

I’ve spent a lot of time this year writing about how Republicans in the Legislature want to make it harder to vote. That’s undeniably true, but it doesn’t fully capture what’s going on. Voting is a thing that most of … Continue reading →

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More on the poll watcher problem

Posted on April 12, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

It’s all right here. You just have to pay attention to what they’re saying. As Texas Republican lawmakers seek to expand the powers of partisan poll watchers — and Democrats warn doing so will lead to intimidation of minority voters … Continue reading →

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House committee passes its voter suppression bill

Posted on April 9, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

I remain pessimistic about this, but we have no choice but to fight. A Texas House committee on Thursday advanced an elections bill that would make it a state jail felony for local election officials to distribute an application to … Continue reading →

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Charter amendment petitions are in

Posted on April 7, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

I need a simpler name for this thing, so that Future Me will have an easier time searching for relevant posts. Houston voters likely will get to decide in November whether City Council members should have the power to place … Continue reading →

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First major vote suppression bill passes

Posted on April 2, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Nothing’s going to stop them. Senate Republicans on Thursday cleared the way for new, sweeping restrictions to voting in Texas that take particular aim at forbidding local efforts meant to widen access. In an overnight vote after more than seven … Continue reading →

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It’s Voter Suppression Week in the Senate

Posted on March 23, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Delayed by a day, but that won’t stop anything. Republican lawmakers in Texas are attempting to cement more bricks into the wall they hope will shield their hold on power from the state’s changing electorate. After more than 20 years … Continue reading →

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Republicans roll out their big voter suppression bill

Posted on March 17, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

They can’t do anything about blackouts or floods or COVID vaccinations, but they sure can do this. Joining a nationwide movement by Republicans to enact new restrictions on voting, Gov. Greg Abbott indicated Monday he will back legislation to outlaw … Continue reading →

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Beto’s “We can win” message

Posted on March 11, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Beto O’Rourke offers a blueprint for how Democrats can win in Texas. In 2020, Joe Biden lost by less than Hillary Clinton did in 2016; eleven of the twelve State House seats we won in 2018 were successfully defended, and … Continue reading →

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Republicans want to ban voting at night

Posted on March 8, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Give me a break. Texas Republicans have made it clear that voter suppression is a legislative priority, and one of their biggest targets involves Harris County. State Rep. Jared Patterson filed a bill last week that would restrict voting hours at … Continue reading →

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Here’s the TDP 2020 after action report

Posted on February 24, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Reasonably informative, though nothing here that I found terribly surprising. Texas Democrats have come to the conclusion that they fell short of their expectations in the 2020 election largely because Republicans beat them in the battle to turn out voters, … Continue reading →

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Are people leaving the Republican Party?

Posted on February 16, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Some people are, in at least some states, if you go by voter registration data. In the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: … Continue reading →

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UH Hobby School poll: Popular things are popular

Posted on January 30, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

That’t the main takeaway here. More than two-thirds of Texans support raising some new taxes and using the state’s rainy day fund to patch budget shortfalls from the pandemic, according to a new survey by the University of Houston’s Hobby … Continue reading →

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If we’re lucky, Congress will short circuit the Lege’s attempts to curtail voting

Posted on January 20, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

That would be nice. Elections have consequences. So does the Republican enabling of the worst, most corrupt chief executive in the nation’s history. Hence, the first piece of legislation to be introduced in the new Democratic Senate will be S. 1, The for the … Continue reading →

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How bad will the attack on voting be this session?

Posted on January 14, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

Hard to say, but there’s no reason to be particularly optimistic. As the country’s political polarization reaches a boiling point — illustrated vividly Wednesday by the violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of the president who believed his … Continue reading →

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Dems go two for two in Georgia

Posted on January 7, 2021 by Charles Kuffner

It’s hard to talk about anything else, given the violent debacle in Washington yesterday, but the two Democratic Senate candidates in Georgia won their runoff elections, giving control of the Senate to the Democrats, and putting an emphatic final exclamation … Continue reading →

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Counties of interest, part six: Central Texas

Posted on December 3, 2020 by Charles Kuffner

Part 1 – Counties around Harris Part 2 – Counties around Dallas/Tarrant Part 3 – Counties around Travis Part 4 – Counties around Bexar Part 5 – East Texas We move on now to counties in Central Texas, which for … Continue reading →

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