Long lines, technical issues was voter suppression, says civil rights group

Civil rights group: Long Lines, technical issues was voter suppression

Advocates are hoping officials across the state can fix these identified issues before the general election in November.

AUSTIN, Texas - Super Tuesday wasn't so super logistically for Texas voters.

“There were long lines, machine malfunctions, and poll workers who weren’t properly trained,” said Mimi Marziani, attorney and president of the Texas Civil Rights Project.

The group said what they saw Tuesday was voter suppression. TCRP ran an election protection hotline, and the calls kept coming in.

Some voters even said they gave up and went home. “The problems we saw yesterday were not felt evenly across the population. Instead, the brunt was on black and brown communities and young people, especially on college campuses,” said Marziani.

Marziani said since the Voting Rights Act was altered, there have been some unwanted effects. “Since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act we've seen a lot of polling place closures across the state and that's very concerning. On the flip side we saw the move to adopt countywide vote centers," she said.

Some polling issues due to ‘multiple no-shows’ of workers on Super Tuesday

Officials say the office began implementing its emergency procedures as it became clear that the no-shows were going to be a problem.

Travis County Clerk's Office: Some polling issues due to 'multiple no-shows' of workers

Travis County Clerk Dana Debeauvoir said Election Day got off to a rough start in Travis County when some poll workers didn't show up due to coronavirus fears and there were some long lines.

“Some folks can’t seem to break that habit of voting at the grocery store. So we saw people voting at several Randall’s stores up until 10:15 at night. But sometimes a block away there are vote centers that go completely underutilized,” said Debeauvoir.

Stacy Hock with the Texas Republican Party said big turnouts equal big logistical blunders sometimes but there is always a lesson to be learned.

“The two parties work together to put on the elections with funding from state dollars. But we have a lot of improvement to do. We can get better with technology, and we can get better with operations. We need to look at, if we double the number of machines, what kind of impact does that have on wait times on Election Day? What are things we can do to maintain integrity?” said Hock.