Potential battleground Texas sees start of in-person voting

Texas has seen record voter registration this year with competitive congressional and state legislative races on the line

Election 2020 Voting Texas (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Eating at a restaurant as the coronavirus spreads across Texas doesn’t necessarily feel safe to Regina Cuchapin, but the Houston resident is willing to take a calculated risk and put herself among crowds to do at least one thing: vote.

Cuchapin and most of the millions of others in the second most populous state in the U.S. will perform their civic duty in person. Texas is one of just five states that did not substantially expand mail-in voting this year, despite official health warnings against attending large gatherings to curb the spread of COVID-19. To be allowed to vote by absentee ballot in Texas, voters must be 65 or older; have a disability; or be outside the county where you're registered to vote on Election Day and during early voting.

But Cuchapin, a healthcare worker and registered Democrat, said she felt reassured by the measures county voting officials have taken to protect voters, even as the state’s death toll from the coronavirus races toward 17,000.

“I think that now that people know how serious it is and what precautions to take, I think those who are ready to come out are taking those precautions,” said Cuchapin, who plans to participate in early voting, which starts Tuesday.

Much is at stake this cycle in America’s largest red state, which has competitive congressional and state legislative races and has hit the presidential radar as a potential battleground. Yet voters on both sides of the aisle say their desire to cast a ballot outweighs their virus concerns.

With 16 million registered voters in Texas, election officials are taking novel approaches to protect the electorate.

In Harris County — which includes Houston and is home to more than 2.4 million voters — there will be triple the number of polling places compared to in previous elections. Voters will be able to choose between standing in socially distant lines to vote in person at a polling place, or a drive-thru option that resembles pulling up to order at a fast-food restaurant. Some polling places will stay open later than usual on select nights, and on Oct. 29, seven locations will be open for 24 hours.

To staff more than 100 voting locations, Harris County officials have doubled the number of paid election workers to 11,000. Bilingual election workers will be available at each location, and high school students will be on-hand as technology aides.

Other large counties are taking similar measures. Travis County, which includes the state capital of Austin, will also have dates with extended hours at select locations during early voting. Dallas County is advertising the use of clear barriers between election workers and voters, and poll workers will sanitize any surfaces that are touched and will provide finger coverings or a popsicle stick to be used as a stylus on voting machines. El Paso County has developed an app to inform voters about voting locations and wait times.

Beyond logistics, getting to this point in Texas — which has some of the strictest voting laws in the country — has been fraught with legal battles. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott expanded the amount of time for early voting, but he also limited the number of places where voters can hand-deliver their ballot to one per county, saying without proof that this would “help stop attempts at illegal voting." Democrats and voting rights groups sued and decried the executive action, pointing out that some counties in Texas are physically larger than entire states.

Republicans in Texas have echoed President Donald Trump's rhetoric that mail-in voting is ripe for fraud, though proof of such fraud is thin. Harris County, which is run by Democrats, tried to send applications for mail ballots to all of its registered voters, but Abbott sued. The Texas Supreme Court sided with the governor this month.

“It is more likely that you will get struck by lightning than experience voter fraud,” Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins said during a tour of the Houston area’s temporary voting headquarters. To drive home his point, he pointed to a metal cage under 24-hour law enforcement surveillance where dropped-off and mailed-in ballots are kept secure until Election Day.

Upping the ante in this election is the chance to flip the Republican-controlled Texas State House of Representatives. Democrats are just nine seats away from seizing control from the GOP for the first time in two decades, with several longtime Republican stronghold districts in the Houston area in play after close calls in 2018.

That's one factor driving Michael Parga, 42, in the Houston suburb of Katy. He said he and other Republicans agree election security is more important than the virus

“What got me motivated was that they said this was a battleground state, and I thought that was impossible,” Parga said.

"This state will stay Republican,” he insisted.

Estela Cisneros, 33, from Houston, said concerns about COVID-19 spreading during the election are very real, especially for Black and minority communities hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. But she said she must vote because this election is too important.

“There is just so much at stake,” Cisneros said. “All I can really tell people is get out there. I was born here and through my vote I am going to give a voice to the people who look like me.”

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AP video journalist John L. Mone in Katy, Texas, contributed to this story.

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Acacia Coronado is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.