Texas Civil Rights Project demands action after "nationally embarrassing" Super Tuesday

AUSTIN, Texas - In a letter penned to the Texas Secretary of State, the Texas Civil Rights Project is demanding that immediate action is taken to invest in voting infrastructure. 

According to the letter, TCRP mentions that the breakdowns at the polls that led to long lines Tuesday created "selective neglect" and made it more difficult for certain communities to cast their ballots. 

RELATED: Long lines, technical issues was voter suppression, says civil rights group

"On Tuesday, millions of Texans--many of them first-time voters--went to their local polling places excited to exercise their rights by casting a ballot in our primary elections. What should have been a fast and straightforward process turned into a nightmare for hundreds of thousands of people across our state," wrote TCRP president Mimi Marziani, "What should have been a fast and straightforward process turned into a nightmare for hundreds of thousands of people across Texas. Even worse, the burden on voting rights was not equally shared by all Texans. Instead—and as Texas has seen over and over—the brunt of the burden was borne by communities of color, young people and people with disabilities." 

According to the letter, the organization wants to see changes made before the November election in order to prevent "a similar disaster from unfolding."  

TCRP has asked Secretary Ruth R. Hughs to do the following: 

• Work with county officials most affected by Tuesday’s problems (Bexar, Dallas, Harris, Hays, Tarrant and Travis counties, and others as appropriate) to hold a series of community town halls no later than the end of April 2020 to hear directly from voters about their experiences trying to vote, and lay out your plan to avert a similar scenario in November.
• Create a state-wide commission comprised of grassroots community leaders, members from the major political parties, and voting rights experts, with a mandate to investigate the reasons for the breakdowns that occurred during the March 2020 Primary Election and to hold public hearings soliciting testimony from Texans affected by them.

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Marziani closed the letter in part by saying, "As Tuesday’s debacle makes clear, Texas’s elections are in need of root and branch reform from top to bottom. Voting is not a privilege that the State of Texas can provide to voters with varying degrees of quality, but a fundamental right at the heart of our democracy that must be equally."  

READ THE FULL LETTER BELOW