AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — In a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, a Latino civil rights group and a voting rights group say a bill signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbott last week that prevents Texans from using a commerical address or post office box as their address when they register to vote is unconstitutional.
The Texas chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a civil rights group, and Voto Latino, a political mobilization group are asking the court to block the enforcement of Senate Bill 1111, which the groups say violates the First, 14th, and 26th Amendments.
The bill is set to go into effect on Sept. 1.
The law states that a person cannot "establish a residence at any place the person has not inhabited" and they cannot "designate a previous residence as a home and fixed place of habitation unless the person inhabits the place at the time of designation and intends to remain.” This means that the address a voter gives while registering to vote must be the address at which they currently reside.
In addition to the address restrictions, the bill empowers voter registrars to send a confirmation notice letter to a registered voter requiring them to confirm their address. If a completed confirmation notice is not received within 30 days, that voter may become unregistered and be unable to vote.
To confirm the address of their current residence the voter must sign a sworn statement that their address is not a commercial location. They would also have to provide the same information required for one to register to vote, including some form of identification.
The plaintiffs characterize SB 1111 as one of many examples of voter suppression pushed by Republicans this past legislative session.
The groups allege the law “burdens voters who rely on post office boxes” and unfairly targets people who may not reside in a single location for long periods of time. The population of people who may not have a primary location and rely on P.O. boxes include people who are experiencing homelessness and students who may live on a college campus.
Texas State LULAC director, Rudy Rosales, said in an interview that the bill is “just another avenue for the state to interfere with people's right to vote.”
Rosales points to the confirmation notices as a clear example of how this law will disenfranchise many Texas voters. Combining an important notice that may impact a person's ability to vote with the amount of junk mail people sift through daily, he said, will lead to many missing their chance to confirm their address and render them ineligible to cast a ballot. Rosales also believes that the law serves to intimidate people from minority communities who are already wary of interfering with the government.
“This type of legislation is as subtle as a jackhammer, they know who is not going to respond, people who can’t speak English, people who have problems dealing with bureaucracy, people who are just naturally scared of the government," Rosales said.
The lawsuit calls into question SB 1111’s legitimacy and says there is no need for it.
Republican state Senator Paul Bettencourt, who was one of the authors of SB 1111, took to Twitter after the lawsuit was filed to voice his support of the bill.
In a Tweet, Bettencourt said “common sense says no one lives in a 2x3 inch P.O. box but LULAC and Voto Latino can’t recognize the obvious here!”
A press release from Bettencourt’s office described the bill as a way to ensure that “voters cannot establish residency for the purpose of unfairly influencing an election outcome.”
During the 2021 Texas legislative session, Republican lawmakers introduced 50 bills that sought to place new restrictions around voting in the name of “election integrity.” More bills relating to voting were introduced in Texas than in any other state.
Senate Bill 7 was one such bill that failed in the final hours of the session as Democratic lawmakers staged a walkout to kill the bill. If passed, SB 7 would have banned 24-hour and drive-through voting, made it a criminal offense for an election official to solicit a vote-by-mail application and expanded the role of poll watchers. Provisions added to the bill during a conference committee would have also lowered the threshold for an election to be overturned and limited polling location hours on Sunday.
Despite the legislative session coming to an end on May 31, the fight over voting is still ongoing. The lawsuit from LULAC and Voto Latino coincides with Democratic lawmakers going on a trip to Washington D.C. to pressure lawmakers there to pass legislation expanding voter access and put an end to Republican efforts at the state level.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced Tuesday that he will be calling a special session that will begin on July 8. Lawmakers will return to Austin to take up issues the governor has set for the agenda. Abbott has not disclosed what items will be on the agenda, but voting rights are expected to come up.
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