A judge has ordered that nine polling places in Harris County, Texas — home to Houston and the most populous county in Texas — extend their voting hours after reports that the sites did not open on time Tuesday morning.
The order by a state district judge came after an motion for a temporary restraining order was filed by the Texas Civil Rights Project and Texas Organizing Project. According to the groups’ court filing, an attorney representing the county’s election officials declined to voluntarily extend the voting hours during a phone call with the groups on Tuesday, prompting the organizations to file the lawsuit.
Texas law requires that polling places remain open for a minimum of 12 hours. The nine polling places will stay open until 8 p.m. local time, according the judge’s order.
The race for Texas’ U.S. Senate seat between Sen. Ted Cruz (R) and Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D) is one of the most closely watched in the nation and could decide which party controls the upper chamber.
Hooray!
One cannot hate the scoundrels enough. It is hard to keep up.
Another attempt to cheat, opening polling places late seems to be a theme as it’s happened in multiple places (all seem to be Democratic areas too). Good thing that the judges are holding the polls open, hopefully people are able to vote who couldn’t in the morning.
The entire voting system really is rigged…it’s almost designed to keep non-Republican votes from getting to vote. That really, really needs to be a priority for the Democrats whenever they get enough power to change the rules again.
So weird. I happened to watch Mississippi Burning last night and saw once again how totally whites controlled local government and police and kept black citizens from voting by any means, whether by laws or intimidation or violence. Seeing the hatred, arrogance and total lack of concern for consequences back then and how long and hard the fight was to bring justice and freedom to all citizens, it brought home the reality that there is no rest from that fight, and that the battle to keep voters away from the polls continues even today. I am astonished that 60 years later, the fight to keep polling places open for logical and fair reasons are still having to be settled by judges.
And I read a piece this morning that LBJ wrote right before the midterms of 1966. In it he warns at length that Americans should not be caught up in white backlash. The country was really badly divided then but he saw where the anger was coming from. His warning is as prescient as Eisenhower’s warning about the Military Industrial complex and the people who were determined to rollback the New Deal.