From Houston Public Media: ‘Six elections since November’: Harris County officials estimate that low turnout could be due to voter fatigue

An ironic form of voter suppression. Tire voters out.

- Click here for the article. 

Call it election overload, voter fatigue, or voter burnout.

Voting, expressing our feelings, joining as one, is a right in America. Yet, year after year, voter rolls are getting smaller, and turnout is so small that a small percentage is making decisions for millions. Texas is not immune. In fact, the election schedule is so heavy that it could even be the problem, one Harris County official says.

"In terms of why there are such a low percentage of voters, there could be various reasons why. Next month will be six elections Harris County has conducted, six elections since last November, back-to-back-to-back-to-back," said Harris County Clerk Tenisha Hudspeth. "November, December, March primary, May 4th special, now the runoff, and then another runoff in June."

In Tuesday's election in Harris County, the largest county with the largest city in Texas, nearly 50,000 people made the decisions for almost five million.

Hudspeth said she would be interested in hearing conversations about minimizing the days of elections and what’s on the ballot at the same time.

"But that's not up to me, and I think that is up to the legislature here in the state of Texas to have more conversations about elections,” Hudspeth said. “How they impact this state, how they impact this county, what's productive for voters in the state of Texas. What I can tell you is there's a legislation session that's coming up next year. And I think voting and elections is always on the table in the state of Texas, that's just the reality."

Hudspeth said that because the election included a short ballot, she feels many voters are choosing to wait until November for the all-important state-wide and national elections.

The upcoming June 15th election is a bi-annual vote, where voters elect representatives in cities, school boards and water districts, and other governing bodies.

- Voter Suppression.

- Voter Fatigue.

How much voter fraud exists in the U.S. and in Texas?

An underlying issue in the previous post is whether voter fraud is a serious issue in the nation - or at least whether it is rampant. What do we know how about how much voter fraud exist in the nation and what type of fraud exists?


Here are a few random items on the question - I don't intend to get too bogged down in it, but it's worth a quick discussion in both 2305 and 2306.



- Ballotpedia: Voter Fraud.

- U.S. New and World Report: Is Voter Fraud a Real Problem?

- RNLA: Vote Fraud News.

- Politifact: Light a match to Greg Abbott's ridiculous claim about 'rampant voter fraud'

- National Review: Voter Fraud: We’ve Got Proof It’s Easy.- Mother Jones: 9 Facts That Blow Up the Voter Fraud Myth.

Will voter suppression tactics return now that the VRA has been weakened?

Here's a concern that they will.

It comes with a complied list of 12 tactics used in the past. A nice history review for our purposes.

1. Changing polling locations. An election official can make this call just days before an election.

2. Changing polling hours or eliminating early voting days. This may be particularly problematic in urban counties where long polling lines are most likely, as Henry Grabar reported last fall.

3. Reducing the number of polling places. This raises the same problem as above, particularly when the eliminated polling places had disproportionately served minority communities.

4. At-large elections. At-large elections for school-board members or city councils often dilute the voting power of minorities who have greater influence in single-candidate district elections. In an at-large election, a cohesive voting block with 51 percent of the vote can elect 100 percent of the officials.

5. Packing majority-minority districts. Election maps drawn to push all of a community's minorities in one or a handful of districts can dilute their voting power.

6. Dividing minority districts. Similarly, election maps can slice minority communities into multiple districts so that they have no cumulative influence in any one place. The line between these two tactics is a fine one (and also illustrates why the VRA was useful for assessing facts on the ground).

7. Voter ID laws: This increasingly popular tactic, sometimes likened to a modern-day poll tax, has the potential to disenfranchise voters who don't have a driver's license, or who don't have the money or ability to obtain one (a disproportionate share of these people are minorities). Such laws can also have a disproportionate impact in cities, where many people don't own cars.

8. Onerous candidate qualifications. In 2007, a Texas provision tried to limit those people eligible to become water district supervisors to landowners who were registered to vote.

9. Changing multi-lingual voter assistance. Making it harder for non-English language speakers to vote is a good way to dilute their power.

10. Changing election dates. Another trick that may not require legislative approval.

11. Creating new elections. In 2006, the DOJ objected to a plan in the Houston area that would have eliminated some joint elections and required voters to travel to multiple polling places.

12. Canceling elections. We're not even really sure how Kilmichael, Mississippi, thought they could get away with this.

State voter laws

Here's an overview of four types of voter laws being considered in state legislatures and the partisan battles over each. Support depends on whether one's interests are helped by expanding or suppressing voter turnout.

1 - voter ID
2 - same day registration
3 - early voting
4 - online registration

The latest crop of articles on Voter ID

Fuel for the fire:

- A panel of federal judges is reviewing Texas' Voter ID law to see if it violates the Voting Rights Act. The law is argued to have a disparate impact on the ability of minorities to vote.

- Politifact says that Greg Abbott's claim that there have been 50 election fraud convictions in Texas is half true, many were not actually convictions, but were granted deferred adjudication.

- The Texas Attorney General claims Voter ID is necessary to fight voter fraud and submitted a list of those accused. The US Justice Department argues there is little evidence of wide-spread, organized fraud.

- Are these laws simply a means of influencing the 2012 election by making it more difficult for groups that vote Democrat to vote than groups that vote Republican?

- The US Attorney General thinks Voter ID laws are a type of poll tax: "Holder charged that many voters would be forced to travel “great distances” to obtain a government-issued photo ID and that many minority voters would “struggle” to pay for the required paperwork. “We call these poll taxes"

- Politifact says it is mostly true that more African Americans than Whites lack government issued photo IDs.

- The Austin American Statesman reports that the bill passed last year requiring that voters show photo identification was rushed through the legislature and the debate over it was racially polarized.