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TYLER, TEXAS - Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Tuesday an elections overhaul that adds more voting restrictions in the booming state. Democrats had spent months protesting what they say are efforts to weaken minority turnout and preserve the Republican Party's eroding dominance in the state.
Abbott signed the sweeping changes during a ceremony in the East Texas city of Tyler, where the surrounding county went for former President Donald Trump by a more than 2-to-1 margin last year. But it was far closer in Texas overall, with Trump carrying the state by 5 1/2 percentage points, the thinnest margin of victory by a Republican presidential nominee here in decades.
The bill signing again underlined the hard right turn Texas Republicans made this year, including a new state law that took effect last week banning most abortions.
Texas is among at least 18 states that have enacted new voting restrictions since the 2020 election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
The laws are part of a national Republican campaign, including in Florida, Georgia and Arizona, to tighten voting laws in the name of security, partly driven by Trump's false claims that the election was stolen.
Opponents did not wait for Abbott's signature to begin filing lawsuits against the new Texas law known as Senate Bill 1. The American Civil Liberties Union, minority rights groups and disability advocates are part of a broad coalition that filed separate lawsuits last week in federal court in Texas, accusing Republican lawmakers of violating the federal Voting Rights Act and intentionally discriminating against minorities.
Some changes squarely take aim at the Houston area, where President Joe Biden carried the surrounding county of 1.6 million voters by a 13-point margin. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic last year, Harris County elections officials offered 24-hour polling places and drive-thru voting, which are outlawed under the new law. The county also tried sending mail-in ballot applications to more than 2 million registered voters, but going forward in Texas, any election official who tries sending an application to someone who doesn't request one could face criminal charges.
Partisan poll watchers are also entitled to more movement, and election judges who obstruct them could also face criminal penalties, which Democrats argue could lead to voter intimidation.
In response to new voting restrictions in Republican-controlled statehouses, Democrats in Congress want to pass new federal voting rights protections at the federal level but have been unable to overcome opposition from Senate Republicans.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended Biden's approach on voting rights, saying the president had used his bully pulpit and made Vice President Kamala Harris the point person on the issue. But Psaki said the administration planned to take additional but unspecified steps to address concerns from voting rights groups. "We would say to these advocates: We stand with you," Psaki told reporters Tuesday aboard Air Force One. "There's more we're going to keep working on together."
Abbott signed the bill 100 days after Democrats kicked off a summer of last-ditch maneuvers by walking out of the state Capitol to temporarily block the measure by leaving the legislature short of a quorum. More than 50 Democrats flew to Washington, D.C., in July to thwart the bill for a second time, which led to Republicans issuing civil arrest warrants in an effort to compel Democrats to return, although no one wound up being forced to come back.
The protests did not achieve any significant changes to the bill, underscoring Republicans' determination to pass the measure and the strength of their commanding majority in the Texas Capitol.