I don't get it? They left the state, sure, but states pass laws without full attendance from state house members all the time. Hell here in Missouri the Republicans waited until Democrats went to lunch to hold a vote and pass some law.
Texas Dems leave state to block quorum on voting bill vote
- Thread starter crimson5pheonix
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I'm not convinced. Presumably, to ask for a ballot, you need to fill in a form, including some sort of security (such as one or more of a signature, driver licence / social security number, etc). But there is literally no reason those security protections can't go on the mail-in ballot itself, either. The protection only needs to go on one, because if a person can cheat one then they can cheat the other, too.
Sure, an imbalance in how easy it is for people to vote in the same state from one county to another is not ideal. But nor is an imbalance in how easy it is for people to vote because of restrictions in hours and station accessibility ideal either. Except at least in the latter case, if some counties have additional access, then more people are facilitated in their ability to vote. Thus you are proposing a situation which still involves some people being disadvantaged in voting, except that has fewer people overall with facilitated voting. Why force an inferior standard that still doesn't resolve inequalities anyway?
Texan Republicans could pass a bill to ensure additional funding to allow enable counties with resource restrictions to open up more support, to improve parity between counties. That it doesn't appear to view this as a sensible solution suggests to me a degree of contempt for democracy and voting rights.
They have to have quorum. Basically it's written into Texas law that if there aren't enough legislators in the capital who note their presence at the start of a day, no bills may be passed as there aren't enough lawmakers to say such a bill is legitimate. Essentially it's a similar exploit as the congressional fillibuster, there aren't enough people willing or able to vote on legislation. The big difference of course is Texas quorum is a lot harder to dodge than congressional fillibuster. The entire legislature here is ground to a halt over this, and the Rs have put out arrest warrants for the Ds who left.
Wait, how do politicians put out arrest warrants? If that's a thing Texas is in a LOT more trouble than just voter suppression laws.
Oh there's so much more wrong than you can know, both in Texas and federally.
But right now the big issue is that our governor is putting out all this conservative wishlist bullshit to avoid losing his seat next election, but his big plan to fix the electric grid that killed literally thousands in February is to charge green energy providers (and only green energy providers) a fine whenever the gas companies can't keep up with demand.
Okay I follow that, but I'm still confused as to the warrants. The Dems left the state so there could be no quorum, meaning no laws can be past. So how did the Republicans in the House vote to issue arrest warrants? If they can pass that, why can't they pass a law? And how can a Governor sign an arrest warrant? Like that's what a judge is supposed to do, with the backing of the DA and law enforcement, not a politician ordering the arrests of the other party.
It was ordered to the sergeant at arms to do so. I likely shouldn't use the word "warrant" as that's a specific legal document that I don't think is actually used. However in asking the sergeant at arms to find the democrats and return them to the capitol, he is (apparently) empowered to arrest those democrats.
EDIT: More concrete answers
:watermark(cdn.texastribune.org/media/watermarks/2021.png,-0,30,0)/static.texastribune.org/media/files/a71914644311347fb8b3f5818d1ef95c/Republicans%20Strip%20Dems%20JV%20TT%2006.jpg)
Texas House Republicans vote to track down absent Democrats and arrest them if necessary
The procedural move carries little apparent weight since the Democrats who fled the state to break quorum are beyond the jurisdiction of Texas law enforcement.
www.texastribune.org
As to how they can vote without quorum, I presume procedural votes don't need quorum like legal bills do.
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Didn't they outright trick the Democrats by saying there wouldn't be a house session during the 9/11 memorial only to hold the session anyway after having tricked the Democrats into thinking there wouldn't be a session?
I was very surprised to find out that this was apparently a legal thing to do.
Like a million and one other things with our democracy, there was the implicit understanding that no one would ever take such actions and putting it into law would be a waste of time. Much of the federal government (and many state governments) in the US is held together by such shoe strings and bubble gum ideals.
Yup. And it was like a late afternoon, early evening secret session. The Republicans here in Missouri are like comic book villains, like Hydra levels of corrupt and two-faced.
So, no drive-thru voting, no 24h early voting, but extending the poll hours otherwise, no mass-mailing applications for mail in ballots unsolicited, a requirement to provide either your driver's license # or last 4 of social on both the application for and the mail in ballot itself and that they must be matching, a process for correcting mail in ballots, a requirement to check voter rolls against DPS data to identify non-citizens, and granting poll watchers more freedom of movement to observe as well as making it criminal to prevent them from doing so.:watermark(cdn.texastribune.org/media/watermarks/2021.png,-0,30,0)/static.texastribune.org/media/files/c9f0102e3f3b0c44078ccfe316ff029a/Texas%20Right%20to%20Vote%20SP%20TT%2019.jpg)
What's in the new voting restriction legislation introduced in the Texas House and Senate
Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 3 will be the starting points for the Legislature's efforts to tighten Texas voting laws. Here's what the bills would do.
Outlines it fairly well. The relevant texts to look up would be TX HB3 2021-2022 and TX SB1 2021-2022
Does that sum up what exactly we're talking about reasonably well?
I mean, I can think of one obvious answer - it opens the door to vote buying. Unless it also explicitly requires only one person be present in the vehicle then it also opens the door to direct coercion. We moved to the secret ballot for good reasons. Anything that allows you to prove to another how you voted opens the door to vote buying harms security.
From what I was reading, it bans having 24h voting, but actually slightly extends early voting hours otherwise. Only thing I can think of as far as how 24h voting might effect security is it might be hard to field poll watchers for the graveyard shift? And even then I'm just trying to give them benefit of the doubt on this one.
Specifically, the legislators who bothered to show up can call for the arrest of their compatriots who are playing hooky to be served by the Sergeant at Arms, which if arrested they would be brought to the legislature to do their jobs. That's why they left the state as opposed to merely staying home - the power of the Texas Sergeant at Arms to arrest people outside Texas is functionally non existent, barring wherever they fled to be willing to extradite them which is made more difficult by skipping out on work as a Texas legislator not being grounds for arrest anywhere else.
Congress has a similar mechanism where technically if you ignore a Congressional subpoena (and a few other cases), Congress can simply ask the Sergeant at Arms to arrest you and jail you until you comply - they just don't make use of it these days and haven't for a good while. I was kinda hoping they would last term.
I hate to be that guy, but republicans did the same thing in Oregon, and I believe the police backed downed and refused to arrest the republicans who wouldn't vote for a carbon price bill.
Since the police aren't going to follow the orders of liberal governors but will do so for conservative governors I say we either shelter the Texas Democrats in DC and or arrest the Oregon Police Chiefs.
Since the police aren't going to follow the orders of liberal governors but will do so for conservative governors I say we either shelter the Texas Democrats in DC and or arrest the Oregon Police Chiefs.
My take away from this is that you have not identified any significant or insuperable problems to these methods. I didn't, either.
They did the same thing but with a right-wing militia and threats to kill anyone who came for them.
Is your position genuinely that there's no issue with discarding the secret ballot because vote buying and direct coercion hasn't been a serious issue in a long time, despite the fact that we adopted the secret ballot to prevent those things in the first place and it did so very effectively?
It's like putting up a traffic light to prevent crashes at an intersection, then deciding that since there hasn't been a crash in a while it's probably fine to do away with the traffic light that was successful in preventing crashes.
As you have not identified a reason why a drive-through voting system necessarily must breach the principle of a secret ballot, that is not an issue that requires answering.
It's fixable, but there are two direct security issues there: Firstly, those cameras everyone carries around all the time that could be trivially used to take a photo of your votes (and yes, that's a problem with voting booths too and needs fixed there as well, death to ballot selfies) and also the question of if the vehicle is required to demonstrably only contain one person, because otherwise that opens the possibility of in direct coercion. It's at least marginally harder to prevent ballot photos taken in someone's private vehicle than it is to do so in a small booth in an otherwise controlled room (if only because any technological solution will be easier to manage in a form factor larger than an iPad).
Maybe just have the voting machine film the user the entire time and just bust everyone who takes a photo? Or strobing IR LEDs, a weird screen refresh rate, and an intentionally narrow field of view LCD? Or all of the above, or something else I haven't thought of to make taking photos moderately more difficult?
Yes, I think this is all reasonable. If the car has multiple occupants, passengers can be dropped off, vote at an on-foot station with the drive-through (or just go to a pick-up point if not voting) as the other votes by drive through, and pick them up at the end. Potential logistical issues may occur if the foot voting is slower, mind. Or that it may be feasible to have the a mechanism where someone can vote in a manner that is not visible to other car occupants, although I'll leave that to someone in the engineering and deisgn field.
Cameras are, as you say, a universal problem.
I’ve voted like five times by driving to the voting place, grabbing a ballot, filling it out just outside, then sealing the envelope and dropping it off. This is literally just a mildly faster version of that process with zero additional vulnerabilities. I do not understand this.
I get a twofer in two threads 
:watermark(cdn.texastribune.org/media/watermarks/2021.png,-0,30,0)/static.texastribune.org/media/files/628b87eec0044adbbf5ff5fda1b5ed3b/Joe%20Manchin%20REUTERS%20TT%2001.jpg)
www.texastribune.org
Joe Manchin went to Texas to fundraise with republicans after telling the democrats who asked him for help that he agrees with them completely, which is why he's going for a bipartisan voting bill that nobody should vote against. He thinks we believe him.
Sen. Joe Manchin, key Democratic holdout on federal voting protections, coming to Texas for fundraiser hosted by several GOP donors
The fundraiser comes just a day after Manchin met with Texas House Democrats on Capitol Hill who are desperate for his support of the congressional efforts which could preempt the statewide GOP’s push to pass bills that would restrict voting access for Texans.
www.texastribune.org
Joe Manchin went to Texas to fundraise with republicans after telling the democrats who asked him for help that he agrees with them completely, which is why he's going for a bipartisan voting bill that nobody should vote against. He thinks we believe him.