Passage Of New Voting Restrictions In Texas Prompts Immediate Voting Rights Lawsuit

Marc Elias, Democratic voting rights attorney, talks with Rachel Maddow about why the courts are the best option for Americans to preserve voting rights when legislatures infringe those rights or fail to protect them.
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81 comments

  1. Can we PLEASE pass a law that states that ANYONE running for ANY office in the American Government can pass an American HISTORY & CIVICS exam and a MENTAL EVALUATION? Everyone is always shouting about “vetting” the immigrants, but no one is vetting our LAWMAKERS.

    1. @Tadicuslegion78 it will absolutely never happen for the simple reason that there are too many other countries that allowed bank accounts. The first of which is Switzerland and also the Cayman Islands. Nice thought though 👍

    2. WHAT A SHARP COMMENT……ABSOLUTELY TRUE (AMERICA A FREE COUNTRY???????? RATHER A LAWN AREA WHERE PEOPLE HAVE THE SAYING THAT HAVE LOST THEIR COMMON SENSE. WHAT AM I HAPPY I’M NOT NOW IN AMERICA LIVE WITH THESE KIND OF IDIOTS IN POWER (ALL THE RESULT OF THE CRAZY ELECTORAL SYSTEM)

  2. In America u can bring an AK-47’s to the voting booth with you, you can have people asking questions about your eligibility to vote who are not elected officials…but u go to jail if you offer water or food to someone voting, and standing in line for 8 hours!

    1. @Ben Dover no you can’t. No food or water can be handed out. They want you to be hungry and thirsty so you get out of line. The right is full of psychos.

    2. @Justice Matters why would you pass a law that allows for you to split into smaller precincts due to long waits, hmm but you know that there is a proven problem but you close the polls and voting spaces in areas forcing folks to come to certain spots, and they all seem to be in minority places..man give it a rest bro..yall must think folks are stupid…

    3. @danrob91 Again, what in this law closes polling places. If I missed it, point it out to me. Everything I find increases, or allows the increase of, polling places. You say they are closing polling places in minority communities, where? Its not in the law. Politicians are making that claim, but again, without any specific facts to support it. Every claim about this law that has been made by a Democrat to support the federal takeover of elections has been disproven. Even Politico, which leans left most of the time, gave Biden four Pinocchio’s over his claims. So I ask you, who’s closing what polls? As for the long lines, there were news reports about the long lines in areas, so the legislature took action to correct it. Based on evidence they heard at the hearings on this law, they concluded that corrections should be made if a voter had to wait more than an hour to prevent it from occurring in the future. Its what the legislatures do. And under the federal bill, free and fair elections are a thing of the past and the politicians get to loot the treasury. Try reading the various laws.

  3. Canada goes to the poll on Sept 20. Today I received my voter information card in the mail. Tells where to vote, times the polls are open, list of options to vote and phone numbers in order to get info on any problems you have. Listed is the address of the local Elections office which will be open seven days of week. My polling station is about a ten minute work from home and I will have anywhere from a 5-10 min. wait in line. One X beside one name on a paper ballot which can easily be counted and the country will know by breakfast time which party won. So, so simply.

    1. Ah, but you’re the fortunate ones: you have neither an outright criminal ex President, nor do you have a corrupt Republican party. And I might add, neither do you have all branches of Government involved in promulgating an obvious lie. That Biden won against all this is an outstanding achievement, but an achievement that will prove useless unless the Democrats take this lot on with everything they have.

    2. @Michael Dryden The only third world aspect in America is we lag behind in voter photo id. Plus Canada has the same rules for the whole country.

    3. @Romance with the Past any country that provides health care dependant on your wealth and where you have diabetic people going without insulin because they cannot pay etc. That country is third world.

  4. I’m waiting for Texas to pass the law that says unless you white you Can’t vote.
    As thing are going it only a matter of time.

    1. You folks are pathetic falling for this race baiting. Meanwhile, where taking down statues of Robert Lee, and erecting Saint George Statues.
      Ofcourse though. The confederacy was about federal government not ruling over the states. And the Drunk power alcoholics love power, so they spit propaganda division towards Amercians for last 150 years.

    2. @Get Off My Lawn They weren’t their own people. They were the Hebrews that left Jerusalem. You know… the one’s in Deuteronomy, the 5th book in the Bible.
      Then….. maybe you don’t know!
      Just because a people have the same skin tone doesn’t mean they are of the same heritage.

    1. @Bill Whitis You are laughing at things your imagination is feeding your ego. Too funny! Thats how CNN/Msnbc manipulate you btw. Your insecurity.

    2. @Colin Levasseur Yikes. Didn’t think it was possible to fit that much hypocrisy in a sentence. You do understand fascists don’t like anything in the constitution. Oh wait. Nevermind, you’re already a fascist you know.

  5. One of the earliest lessons I learned: When you have to cheat to win, you’ve got nothing worth fighting for.

    1. @Clubber Lang first off, nobody cares about what counts in your book. Second both impeachment’s were bipartisan. Mitt Romney voted with the democrats in the first one a seven republicans voted for in the second one. You don’t even know what you are talking about clown. Republicans are the dumbest people on earth.

    2. @Adam Taylor Let’s see. Tim Scott had a police reform bill he was pushing in either 2019 or 2020. Trump created more manufacturing jobs in 3 years than any president in this century, bringing us back to pre-NAFTA levels. He also created opportunities which led to an increase in minority owned small businesses. He also increased and extended long-term funding for minority universities. They support a secure border, 2nd Amendment rights, they support limits on abortions (not sure why anyone would want to overturn Roe, but that’s a whole other issue), they support infrastructure (just not the massive spending on non-infrastructure things proposed by Dems), they support welfare reform (although not as much as I would like, but I admit to a personal bias on that issue), they support school choice initiatives (vouchers). They have also become the party favoring State’s rights over federal domination, a lot of which we are seeing play out in real time these days. The biggest thing they have on jobs is how to go about it. Many of the old timers still subscribed to Reagan’s trickle down theory-i.e., they believe if you cut taxes on the top (like corporate rate) the companies will use that extra money to expand their businesses thereby creating more jobs. Many economists will tell you though, it didn’t trickle. It’s why Trump moved to creating the opportunity for more people to start small businesses for themselves. That was working. He may have been an oaf, but one has to give credit where its due. Biggest ideology difference I se between the parties is that Republicans push for more individual responsibility while Democrats pursue the perpetual welfare state of government dependency. With a little research, I could probably write you a whole paper on positions or policies pushed by Republicans.

    3. @Adam Taylor so we are all racist for being republican?? what is wrong with this country? We can be what we want without ridicule. That’s America.

  6. Your forefathers/ mothers died in the fight for the ability to vote no matter which party you support. Don’t waste this sacrifice. Stand up for everyone’s ability to vote. Its a constitutional right. Keep it alive for your children.

    1. @evensteve284 YouTube doesn’t allow links to be posted in the comments section anymore. Try searching his channel.

    2. @Susan The Heritage Foundation has a data base of voter fraud cases if you would care to look at it. They track prosecutions, convictions, and judicial/official determination. You’ll find that it is more common than you think. After the 2000 election debacle, Florida started a review of the eligibility of all registered voters in the State. Dems screamed all kinds of things and took the case to court. Before being ordered to stop, the Fl Sec of State identified roughly 3k ballots which had been cast illegally. In a State with 4 mil ballots cast, that doesn’t seem like much. But it was a State that was decided by just 526 votes, so that 3k votes could have swayed the election a couple of times. And it was the State that put George W Bush into the WH. Stacy Abrahms, a Dem, has made a whole career claiming fraud in the 2018 Ga Governors election. Hillary still claims fraud in the 2016 election.

    3. @Justice Matters The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity relies on a database produced by the Heritage Foundation to justify baseless claims — by President Trump and some of the panel’s members — of rampant voter fraud. But according to an analysis of the database by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, the numbers in the database reveal exactly the opposite.

    4. @Susan Actually the database shows more than 31 cases, which was my point. A number of those ended up with convictions. They also list judicial and/or official determinations. You also have to remember that fraud is by its very definition, a crime of stealth – meaning it is difficult to detect by design. And even when detected, it is seldom prosecuted. Of the 3k illegally cast ballots in Florida in 2000, none were prosecuted. Mainly because it was difficult to determine who actually cast the illegal ballots. Still, a legislature does not have to wait until a crime is committed to take steps to prevent it. Most of the Texas law is based on issues that arose elsewhere around the country to prevent it from becoming an issue in Texas. Two really good examples are 1) elimination of the signature matching for mail-in ballots. Major lawsuits have arisen over the qualifications of examiners or the subjective nature presented by this. So a number of states go to the Drivers License or State ID numbers or the last four digits of one’s social. These are more finite forms of identification. 2) It is undisputed that one county in Michigan (maybe Mn) had machines flip 1k votes from Trump to Biden. This is what set off the whole deal over Dominion machines. I, and apparently the Texas legislature, tend to go with the Dominion explanation that it was because the weren’t reset after a previous election. To address this, the Texas law requires officials to reset the machines before, during (if able or needed), and after every election. And allows any party or org to be there to observe it being done. Had that been done in Michigan, it could have saved many headaches. This issue also underscores the need for paper ballots – to clear up any disputes over the computers.

  7. This why ACB refused to answer whether or not voter intimidation is illegal? The SC has legalized it unconstitutionally.

    1. @Mark M I don’t understand this. The SC has delegitimized itself. The FBI is allowing a cancer to metastasize. Those institutions have lost credibility.

    2. What’s the difference between Amy “Covid” Barrett and the Taliban?
      One’s a homegrown female jurist jihadist oppressing and persecuting women.

  8. Our post-depression Grandparents voted out the GOP for wrecking the USA..we forgot our history.. time to do the work and vote them out forever

  9. They had to stack the decks in their favor to even compete, the irony is, they’re still gonna lose. And once they realize that gerrymandering, voter intimidation, voter suppression, denying snacks and water, and all sorts of gimmicks didn’t work, they’re gonna play their final card, full fascism.

    1. Yes. So, we have to meet the challenge at every turn and do all we can before they take it to the streets because they are willing to go there.

    2. @ Lea exactly. All this scale tipping is gonna do, is bring out voters on an even bigger scale. If you tell someone, “we don’t want your vote to count” people aren’t gonna stay home, they’re gonna show up and show out. Keep in mind, the rules that the Republicans are complaining about, are the rules that they set. They lost even when making the rules in 2020, and it’s gonna be even worse in 2022 and 2024. Texas had the largest population increase in the latest census, and 95% of the new Texans are black and brown people. The GOP knows it’s time is up. Their only saving grace has been the Electoral College, when Texas goes blue in spite of all of these voter restrictions, it’ll be ball game for them and their minority rule. If DC becomes a state, it’ll be doubly done, Dems will have a majority in the Senate that is filibuster proof and get work done. People only stack the deck in their favor, the way the GOP has, if they’re scared and they have nothing substantive to offer the voter.

    3. That’s the plan alright !!
      Open Warfare is the only way to keep their necks from the gallows for funneling Putins desires along with his money they so graciously accepted .

    1. @evan doe Incontinence? I did, many things would make voting easier, this is obvious. Absent a reason to do otherwise government should make effort to make voting convenient. There is no such effort.

    2. @Mark M lol you can’t decipher a typo…. You’ve yet to list any inconvenience of voting…. Do you not long participating in the electoral process?

    3. @evan doe Well, for instance, limiting the polling places in large counties such as Texas has, some people are being expected to make a 2hr round trip to vote on a work day. They also are cutting the hours in which you have to do so, in these places, not because they had to, they chose to close multiple polling stations, and limit the hours that would have made it easier to vote. Sure dosen’t seem easier to vote there to me.

    4. @Dirt Merchant that’s false…. Every town has a place to vote….. No one is limiting the right to vote…. If a person can’t be responsible and manage their time in order to vote, they didn’t want to vote anyway….. How is voting hard anyway?????

    5. @Dirt Merchant Where in the law does it close polling places? The law provides for more polling places in most instances. And if you look at the law, it expands hours the polls can be open, not cutting them. Have you even read the law, or just listened to the political spin?

  10. If you have to cheat to win, that means the majority of voters dont care what you have to say, and want you gone!! The Republican party is DESPERATE!!

    1. THAT CRAZY TRUMP ONCE MADE HIMSELF AND TOLD …..IF YOU LET THE PEOPLE CHOOSE/DECIDE HONESTLY, THE RIGHT NEVER COMES TO POWER AGAIN…..AND THAT’S RIGHT. dTHE ORDINARY MAN WANT THE ORDINARY PEOPLE WANT TO BE GOOD AND THAT’S NOT WHAT THE RIGHT WANT. CRAZY ENOUGH MANY ORDINARY PEOPLE DO NOT SEE THIS

    2. @Fern Park 88 no they are not and you know it. Y’all want as many democrats as you can not to vote. Republicans are trash.

    3. Really, so tell us about all the restrictions they have put on voting? You have something against showing ID to vote? They actually extended hours. You have no idea what you’re talking about.

  11. Making it more difficult to cheat doesn’t really sound like a bad thing to me. If you looked at what’s necessary to exercise your 2nd amendment right, this is truly nothing.

    1. @Paul Obviously the constitution is not infallible . Seems to me not having a federal voting system is the reason we are in this mess and allowing politicians to continue to cater to their base instead of working for the good of the majority once in office is going to be the death of this nation.

    2. @Paul that’s why we make amendments. Their really isn’t a purpose for the electoral college or districts for presidential elections.

  12. Texas vigilante law-
    How many times, by how many people, can a person be sued for assisting abortion? If the information spreads on social media, can 200 people sue the same individual for 10k each????
    Ponzi vigilante mob!

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