In response to those local efforts, Republicans who control the state legislature filed a series of restrictive voting bills. Researchers last year said “Texas is the state with the most restrictive voting processes,” but it’s likely its laws will become stricter.
One measure that’s been proposed would make distributing ballot applications to voters who didn’t ask for one a felony. Others would outlaw drive thru-voting, and not allow polling locations to be open for more than 12 hours — specifically beyond 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Another would require that election administrators put the same amount of voting machines in every one of their polling sites, no matter what.
That last one makes no sense to Chris Davis, the election administrator in Williamson County, a swing county in central Texas.
“If you have a smaller-size room in one part of your county that can only fit eight [voting machines],” he says, “well, by golly, eight is as many as you can have in an arena, or a lecture hall or high school gym.”