Opinion: Proposed Texas voting bill would hurt access for rural residents, too

Fifty-six years ago this week, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act to protect the right to vote for all Americans. It was an important piece of legislation, passed in response to the Selma protests earlier in the year where a young John Lewis was beaten, his skull fractured. Fights over voting rights were not new then and continue today.

I have been a volunteer deputy registrar in Gillespie County since 2016. I work with other volunteers to provide outreach and education to people who might not be reached by the county elections office. To register voters, I had to undergo training from county elections officials, and every two years I must pass a test to keep my voter registrar certificate.

Rural areas are just as affected by confusing and restrictive rules as urban areas. House Bill 3, a measure so problematic that Texas Democrats fled the state last month rather than vote on it, claims in its introduction to “promote voter access.” I would disagree. I think voting laws in Texas discourage voter access. And they particularly make voting difficult for the poor and elderly in rural areas.

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Let’s take my fictional neighbor, 89-year-old Mrs. Klemper, who illustrates some of the challenges I see real voters experience. She has no car, qualifies as low-income, and has no computer, no internet and no printer. If she wants to vote by mail, she has to call the elections office (assuming she can find the number) for a ballot request form or go to the elections office in person (oops, no car). And she has to fill out this form EVERY year. If our lawmakers truly want to promote voter access, they could add language that enables voters over 65 to sign up for vote-by-mail once and automatically get their ballot every election after that, requiring a new form only if the voter has moved.

Adding to the confusion, HB 3 would require voters to fill out the mail-in ballot request form with the exact same ID number used when mailing the ballot, sometimes weeks later. Mrs. Klemper is having trouble remembering where she put her glasses, much less whether she used a voter ID code, a driver’s license number, or the last four digits of her Social Security number on her vote-by-mail application so that she can use the same ID number with her mail-in ballot.

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And speaking of driver’s licenses, Mrs. Klemper doesn’t have one when she goes to vote or to fill out forms. Her husband used to do all of the driving, and Mrs. Klemper never traveled internationally, so no passport either. What kind of ID can she use? She can get a Voter ID for free from the Department of Public Safety, but again, she has no car to get there. She lives in a rural area without public transportation. She also doesn’t have access to the technology needed to download and print forms, purchase stamps, research her ballot, and so on.

At this point, Mrs. Klemper gives up, and another voter does not get to exercise her right to vote.

The right to vote also includes the right not to be harassed when you go to vote. HB 3 would provide new freedoms for partisan poll watchers to roam polling places and question anyone who gets in their way, and even subject them to prosecution. A partisan poll watcher, unlike a volunteer deputy registrar, has not undergone any formal training or passed a test certifying they actually know what they are doing. If the Legislature truly wants fair elections, partisan poll watchers need to have the same training and testing as volunteer deputy registrars and paid election workers, who don’t want to be threatened with legal action for trying to do their job.

I would suggest the Legislature walk a mile in the shoes of their rural constituents and go back to the drawing board if they truly want to promote voter access. This was the intent of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Zeiher is a nonprofit administrator and volunteer deputy registrar who lives in Fredericksburg.