Today, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc (LDF), submitted testimony in the Texas House of Representatives House Election Committee expressing opposition to House Bill 6 (H.B. 6). This bill appears to transfer authority for the safety and integrity of elections to partisan poll watchers, including by preventing an election judge from removing a watcher from a polling place for any reason other than for an offense related to election fraud, which could encourage voter intimidation. The bill also uses the phrase “purity of the ballot box” throughout, which is found in the Texas Constitution and has deep ties to white legislators calling to ensure “the purity of the Anglo-Saxon race.”
Read the full testimony here.
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Since its founding in 1940, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (“LDF”) has used litigation, policy advocacy, public education, and community organizing strategies to achieve racial justice and equity in education, economic justice, political participation, and criminal justice. Throughout its history, LDF has worked to enforce and promote laws and policies that increase access to the electoral process and prohibit voter discrimination, intimidation, and suppression. LDF has been fully separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (“NAACP”) since 1957, though LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights.
