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Opinion: Texas lawmakers should reject plan to make voting even harder [1]
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Date: 2025-05-15
By Anthony Gutierrez
Imagine it’s early October of 2026. Early voting will be starting soon. You registered to vote two weeks ago and you’ve been anxiously waiting to receive your voter registration card.
Anthony Gutierrez
You check your mail but instead of a voter registration card, you see an official-looking envelope from your county elections office.
When you open it, you’re surprised to see a letter saying your voter registration has been flagged as that of a potential non-citizen and you are now required to appear in-person to present documents to the county proving you are indeed a U.S. citizen.
The list of acceptable documents listed that you can use as proof include a birth certificate, passport or citizenship papers.
Assuming you know where you put those documents, or are able to find the time and money to obtain them, you will then need to find the time to get yourself to the one government office in your county where you will need to present your documents.
If you’re not able to find one of those required documents and get to the county office before you head to the polls, the letter informs you that you will only be allowed to vote in federal races and will not be allowed to vote for anything else.
Regardless of if you really love or hate the politicians making decisions within our state government, you will get no say in those elections.
If there are local bond elections for your neighborhood school or a city councilmember you absolutely want to see replaced, making your voice heard in those elections will not be an option for you.
This is a very real scenario you could find yourself in if a bill being pushed by Republicans in the Texas Legislature succeeds in getting it passed into law.
Senate Bill 16 will soon be voted upon in our state Legislature. The bill is similar to the SAVE Act, which recently passed in the U.S. House of Representatives.
SB 16 has gotten extremely far in the legislative process despite overwhelming opposition.
During a recent committee hearing, over 200 Texans showed up at the Capitol to register their opposition to the bill. Only five registered in support.
I was one of the many Texans who showed up at the Capitol early in the morning and waited until late at night to testify in opposition.
Among those who opposed were Chase Bearden of Disability Rights Texas, who highlighted how those with disabilities would lose out under this law.
A number of women spoke about how they would personally be impacted because they changed their names upon marriage and do not have a birth certificate or passport that matches their current name.
And state Rep. John Bucy delivered a compelling argument, outlining the many ways in which Texans could get caught up in the deeply confusing and poorly thought-out bureaucratic process created by this bill.
This policy has been enacted, to disastrous results, in other states.
In Kansas, a similar policy blocked one in eight eligible voters from registering and was eventually declared unconstitutional.
In Arizona, the policy led to over 200,000 voters being challenged to prove their citizenship, as reported in a recent Washington Post article. That article included interviews with a number of Republicans who strongly support President Trump, the loudest voice in support of this proposal.
Of those, many thought they must have been contacted by mistake. Some suspected the letters were a scam to obtain sensitive information. Most said they supported ensuring only citizens are able to vote, but did not understand why they personally should have to prove anything.
And that hits on perhaps the most important point regarding this policy. Our election system in America, including here in Texas, is already secure.
Under current law, only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote, there are robust protections to ensure only citizens vote, and there are harsh penalties for any noncitizen that does attempt to vote.
If this bill becomes law, Texas will spend millions of your taxpayer dollars on implementation. Those dollars will accomplish absolutely nothing except to make it even harder to register to vote, in one of the only states in the country that still refuses to let citizens register to vote online.
If you would rather not navigate a pointless and time-consuming process to justify your citizenship before you go vote, I strongly urge you to take a minute to call your state representative right now and let them know you want them to strongly oppose SB 16.
Anthony Gutierrez is an El Paso native currently living in Austin. Anthony the Executive Director of Common Cause Texas, a nonpartisan organization that works to protect and advance democracy in Texas.
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[1] Url:
https://elpasomatters.org/2025/05/15/opinion-texas-sb-16-bad-for-voters/
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