Proposed bill seeks to ban voting sites at Texas college campuses
A new bill has been filed in Texas to prohibit counties from putting a polling place at a college or university. Texas Representative Carrie Isaac, a Republican from Hays County south of Austin, introduced the bill on Thursday, February 16, looking to prohibit polling places at higher education institutions in Texas.
The bill wouldn’t allow county officials to designate the college campuses or universities as polling place locations starting September 1. The bill followed another proposal filed that would require counties to put a certain number of polling places on college campuses depending on enrollment size.
MOVE Texas, a nonprofit organization that works to represent underrepresented youth, condemned the filing shortly after Isaac presented it, calling it “one of the most insidious attempts to silence young voters in Texas.”
“We reside in a state infamous for restricting the freedom to vote,” MOVE Texas stated in its release. “Every legislative session, extremist politicians take the opportunity to invent new and novel ways to further suppress the vote and attack the power of our communities. We are used to this, but there’s no way we’re accepting it. This is unmistakable. This is blatant.”
The 88th Legislature’s regular session began on January 10 and runs through May 29. After the 2022 elections, Republicans hold 86 of the seats in the House and 19 of the seats in the Senate. While thousands of bills are filed, only around a thousand will pass, according to the Texas Tribune. August 27 is the earliest day most bills can go into effect if they didn’t pass with more than two-thirds of votes.
