Anyone who has been paying attention to MAGA influencers in recent years will know that the chaos, confusion and frustration that Republican officials helped inject into Tuesday’s Democratic primaries in Texas is all part of the GOP’s voter suppression playbook.
Much of the confusion stemmed from Ken Paxton’s insistence that Democratic voters not be granted court-approved extended voting hours. Paxton, the Texas attorney general and a GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate, successfully petitioned the state’s GOP-led Supreme Court to block a lower court’s extension of voting hours amid reports of confusion and misinformation about where to vote under the new, precinct-style voting system imposed by Texas Republicans.
In essence, the vote center model is a convenient method that can boost turnout, because it allows people to cast ballots at any such center authorized by the state. In contrast, the precinct model only allows for people to cast votes at a specific polling place in their designated precinct. It’s often associated with fewer polling places, which can lead — and, in many cases, has led — to longer lines and fewer people casting ballots.
It should come as no surprise that the precinct system has become a favorite among MAGA election denier types who are hellbent on enacting voter suppression measures — people who see the model as a way for their political allies to keep watch over who is voting and where.
The epicenter of this push has arguably been in Arizona, where lawmakers have been seeking to apply a precinct system statewide.
On Wednesday, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., sounded the alarm on this growing trend after Tuesday’s chaos in Texas.
“These problems in Dallas echo debates happening in Arizona, where state legislators are advancing measures to eliminate countywide voting centers in favor of strict precinct voting,” they said in a statement, adding that the chaos in Texas proved there’s cause for concern about the precinct system.
Fontes is, of course, well aware of these debates. MAGA influencers in Arizona have made clear for years that they see the precinct model as the Republican Party’s path to power. You can witness some of their antidemocratic agita in this 2022 exchange between now-Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., and Tyler Bowyer, a top official at Arizona-based Turning Point USA.
Tellingly, Bowyer and other members of TPUSA have been known to lionize former Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell, whose policies created notoriously long wait times for Phoenix-area voters. To some, her name is synonymous with racist voter suppression — and she’s even the namesake behind the Supreme Court’s “Purcell principle,” a legal theory that has been used to disenfranchise voters.
But to hear Bowyer tell it, Purcell was just the victim of a “coordinated” media takedown who was making necessary changes to Arizona’s voting system before being replaced by Fontes, who defeated her to become Maricopa County’s recorder before going on to serve asd Arizona’s secretary of state.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.