Open Letter To The Texas Senate: Stop Attacking Our Vote

This letter was signed by Texas voters and Our Vote Texas members. It was delivered to members of the Texas Senate on August 11, 2021 and forwarded to members of the Texas House of Representatives on August 21, 2021.

To: Members of the Texas Senate
From: Our Vote Texas

As Texans who care about our vote, we value policies that provide equitable access to the ballot and that help grow a culture of strong civic engagement.

More than halfway into 2021 now, it is maddening to have to continue fending off senseless legislative assaults on our vote from the very leaders of this state who should be working on actual pressing issues and crises before us, not the least of which is the dangerous COVID surge Texas now faces.

SB 1, like its predecessors this year, does nowhere near enough to help Texas voters and in fact does entirely too much to make voting, already a difficult task in our state, even worse.

It takes away good, popular voting practices (like 24 hour voting and drive-thru voting) implemented in the 2020 election at a time when we should be investing in ways to take those approaches and make them work for more areas of the state.

These helpful practices become even more critical when you consider that we are still battling a pandemic wreaking havoc on some of our most vulnerable communities including populations of Texas not yet old enough to receive a life saving vaccine.
Texans deserve to be able to vote safely, period.

SB 1 also still emboldens partisan poll watchers in alarming new ways that do not exist under current law and that could result in voter intimidation at the polls.

And it still makes completely unnecessary crackdowns on vote by mail which is already heavily restricted in our state and could impact Texans who have long relied on this method of voting.

It’s time to drop these baseless, senseless attacks on the democratic process and listen to what the vast majority of Texas voters have been saying from the start:
Let us vote.

Sincerely,
Our Vote Texas