This Tuesday, March 10th starting at 9 am the entire Texas Senate will hold a massive hearing on SB 362, a voter suppression bill that would require voters to show multiple forms of photo identification in order to vote at the polls.
Don’t think having to show ID to vote sounds that bad? Think about how much more difficult it might be to keep current identification if you were elderly, or disabled, or homeless even. Or what about low-income individuals… if you had to use public transportation to get around and worked multiple jobs, how much more difficult would that trip to DPS become? What if you were a woman who had just gotten married, and still had a driver’s license with your old last name on it? Or were a student with an out-of-state license, or had moved to Texas recently? What if you had lived in Texas your whole life, but a hurricane hit your hometown just before the election — as happened with Hurricane Ike this fall. Didn’t think to grab your ID and several bills to prove who you were? Too bad, can’t vote.
Starting to sound like a problem, isn’t it? Studies show that this bill has the potential to disenfranchise as many as 2 million Texans.
Good thing there’s still time to do something about it.
You know the gig by now. Contact your Senator! Call, email or fax your Senator and tell them you are opposed to Voter Suppression Legislation, specifically SB 362 by Fraser and Estes. Don’t know who represents you? Problem solved.
Still mad? If you’re in Austin and have some free time tomorrow, you can do even more. Attend the hearing and register your opposition to the bill, testify if you can. There will also be a gathering at 10 a.m. on the south steps of the capitol of those in favor of the bill, which you are invited to attend with signs of your own voicing the opposite opinion.
More advice and details on action you can take after the jump, courtesy of Laurie Vanhoose, administrator of the Texans Against Voter Suppression Facebook group. Join it today, and contact your representatives about this reprehensible piece of legislation! The rest of this post is lifted from an action e-mail she sent out Monday evening.
