The state and the political parties need to be held accountable for failing to align voting centers with demand.
Voting is a democracy’s best expression of the power of the people to choose the elected officials who will represent them. A trip to the polls shouldn’t make a trip to the Department of Public Safety to renew a driver’s license seem like a breeze.
On Super Tuesday, thousands of voters endured brutally long lines at polling places in Texas’ largest cities. In Houston, ground zero for Election Day dysfunction, the last primary vote in the state was cast at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday by a man who stayed in line more than six hours to exercise his voting rights. Hervis Rogers was late for his second job on an overnight shift, but was determined not to be deterred. “The way it was set up, it was like it was set up for me to walk away,’’ he told reporters. “But I said I am not going to do that.”
Kudos to the thousands like Rogers who stuck it out. A system, however, that requires voters to stick it out into the wee hours of the next morning to exercise a cherished constitutional right and privilege is in need of an overhaul.
Same-day voting should not be an endurance contest. The state, political parties and counties must make sure that voters don’t face a repeat of this debacle when they go to the polls in the fall.
While some voting locations in Dallas and Tarrant counties had long lines, the worst delays occurred in Harris County. Voter turnout in the Democratic Primary in Harris County increased by 44% compared to the last presidential election four years ago. However, two-thirds of Harris County’s voting centers were in predominantly GOP precincts where turnout was less robust and more in line with historical trends.
The same trend appears statewide. Democratic Primary turnout as a percentage of registered voters in Texas appears to be the largest since 2008 when Barack Obama headlined the ticket. But since 2012, 542 of the 750 polling places that Texas closed were in the 50 counties that gained the most black and Hispanic residents. And since 2014, Democratic turnout has been below the level of GOP primary turnout over that period.
Taken as a whole, poor planning; inexperienced and overwhelmed staff; large voter turnout vs. population growth; machine meltdowns of aging equipment and too few machines and websites that directed voters to overcrowded sites created unnecessary and unpleasant voter obstacles. A civil rights group has now called for state officials to explain Super Tuesday voting snafus.
The state and the political parties need to be held accountable for failing to align voting centers with demand. When voters, often in poor and minority areas, can’t cast their ballots until the wee hours of the next morning, then Texas has a voting problem. But if the result of closing polling places creates long lines that disproportionately impacts Democratic and minority communities, then Texas is edging uncomfortably closer to infringing on voting rights.
A bipartisan presidential commission on election reform recommended in 2014 that voters should not have to wait longer than 30 minutes to cast a ballot. When seven-hour delays occur, then changes must be made to facilitate voting.
Regardless of political party, voters deserve the right and opportunity to make their choices without the confusion and delays that so many endured on Tuesday.
