4/8/21 Houston Republicans Recruit for an "Army" of Poll Watchers

Have you heard of Harris County, Texas? That's pretty much the same thing as Houston. And Harris County, a GOP official says, is "where the fraud is occurring." That quote is from a video of a meeting given to Common Cause Texas by an alarmed attendee.

We all know by now that when the right wing says "election fraud" they mean "black and brown people voting." (A Loyola Law School professor says that from 2000 to 2014, he found 31 fraudulent votes out of more than a BILLION votes cast. )

In the video, the unnamed man talks about Republicans gathering "the courage" to come in from the suburbs and stare down the voting baddies. "If we don't do that, this fraud down in here is really going to continue," he says. He identified Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church -- a Black church -- as a site that really had to have Republican poll watchers.

“This is a role that’s supposed to do nothing but stand at a poll site and observe,” noted Anthony Gutierrez of Common Cause Texas. So “why is he suggesting someone needs to be ‘courageous’?” We think it's lovely that Gutierrez was polite enough to pose it as a question.

The Harris Republican Party, predictably, responded to the video with an attack, saying that Common Cause was “blatantly mischaracterizing a grassroots election worker recruitment video.” Nope. They just want to activate "an army of volunteers" to make sure that every legal vote is counted. It's so predictable, they might as well throw a color-coded frisbee representing a Republican dodge; the party may have as many as a half-dozen of them.

Meanwhile, the GOP has proposed legislation that would allow poll watchers to film and photograph polling locations and send the photos to the Texas secretary of state. Surveillance much? Intimidation much? Why, yes.

What can you do to fight back this clear attempt at voter intimidation if you're not living in Texas?

Is there any hope of federal intervention, given the Supreme Court's 2013 evisceration of voter protection law, that could parry this latest attempt at forcing liberals not to vote?

Is there any state anywhere that is more blatant about its electioneering goals than Texas and, of course, Georgia?
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/547270-texas-gop-official-in-video-calls-for-an-election-integrity-brigade-to?fbclid=IwAR3l8QfrRVuoaG1Gp0L23ygO2UveZZ6Jsb6IoczHIKyKHpneTevAEGAZX18