This week, voting rights advocacy group MOVE Texas is going live with a six-figure ad-buy to oppose voter suppression measures SB 7 and HB 6.
HB 6 and SB 7, currently being considered by the Texas legislature, and pushed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, would do the following:
- Make it a felony for a public official to distribute an absentee ballot application—not even an absentee ballot—to anyone who has not requested one
- Make it a felony for a public official to distribute an absentee ballot to anyone other than the person who submitted the request
- Make it a felony for a public official to encourage anyone to submit an absentee ballot application who did not request one
- Give the attorney general broad authority to prosecute volunteers who engage in get-out-the-vote campaigns in the lead-up to elections
- Give partisan “poll watchers” special rights to intimidate voters, outlawing their removal from polling places for any reason other than ‘election fraud’
- Require anyone applying for an absentee ballot based on disability to submit a sworn statement that they are physically incapable of entering a polling place and require that those individuals also provide medical documentation attesting to their condition before they can qualify for an absentee ballot
- Require county-wide polling places in a given county have “approximately the same number of voting machines” as every other county-wide polling place in the county, regardless of variations in population
In response, MOVE Texas launched the ad buy to raise awareness of how bad these bills are in the following Texas regions and cities:
Austin
Dallas
Houston
Lubbock
Amarillo
The RGV
To view the ads, click here. To read more about the ads, click here.
The ad-buy comes following a press conference last week where Gov. Greg Abbott repeated misleading claims about ‘election integrity’ and conceded that he could not point to any evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.
MOVE Texas Action Fund Executive Director H. Drew Galloway released the following statement:
“Senate Bill 7 and House Bill 6 represent the most egregious assault on voting rights here in Texas since the Jim Crow era. In a state that already has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country, the true aim of these bills is abundantly clear: to target young, Black and Brown voters and silence the voices of a rising Texas electorate.
“We’re committed to fighting these bills because they are bad for Texas voters and will cause significant damage to our democratic process. Instead of aiding in the recovery efforts following last month’s winter storm or working to speed up vaccine distribution, state leaders like Greg Abbott are trying to stop Texans from voting. MOVE Texas is investing a six-figure sum towards beating back these bills because every eligible voter in Texas deserves to have their voice heard in our elections.”