Jim Crow Ballot ‘Purity’ Phrase Yanked From Texas Vote Suppression Bill At Last Minute

A segregationist time period from the Jim Crow period referring to the “purity” of ballots was yanked on the final minute earlier than the Texas Home handed a measure proscribing voting.

Eighteen amendments — 13 of them from Democrats — had been added to the Republican election invoice earlier than it was handed 78-64 Friday. 

However an preliminary struggle was over the invoice’s assertion of function. It initially mentioned that mentioned the measure was designed to “protect the purity of the poll field” — a phrase “drafted particularly to disenfranchise Black voters following the Civil Struggle,” Democratic Rep. Rafael Anchía informed invoice sponsor Rep. Briscoe Cain (R).

“Are you conscious of the historical past of that?” he requested in feedback on the ground.

“No, I’m sorry to listen to that … These are troubling issues,” Cain mentioned.

Cain later famous that he’d be prepared to conform to an modification to vary “purity” to “integrity or one thing,” reported the Austin-American Statesman. The phrase was stricken from the bill.

The measure would improve laws on voting by mail, create a number of new election-related crimes, and enhance protections for partisan ballot watchers. It may make it a felony for somebody to provide an individual a vote-by-mail software until they requested one.

Anchía argued that Texans had been extra prone to be struck by lightning than to come across the vote fraud GOP lawmakers insist they’re addressing. 

“You realize what undermines confidence in our elections? It’s the lies which might be informed within the face of all opposite proof by politicians for their very own and their celebration’s political acquire,” mentioned Anchía.  

The invoice handed alongside celebration traces and now goes to a convention committee, the place lawmakers will resolve variations between the Home and Senate variations of the invoice.