Primary voters in some parts of Texas waited in punishingly long lines to cast a ballot last Tuesday. A surge in Democratic voter turnout overwhelmed many polling places on university campuses, as well as other locations serving communities of color in Houston, according to complaints received by the Texas Civil Rights Project. At Texas Southern University, the city’s historically black college, people waited in line for more than six hours.
Black and Latinx lawmakers in the state say they’ll soon hold a hearing on barriers to voting. On Friday, Harris County Clerk Diane Trautman, the local elections administrator, apologized for the long lines. “It is clear that the history of marginalized communities being left behind in the voting process has led to polling deserts in areas of Harris County,” she said in a statement.
Richard Hasen, an elections law expert and professor at the University of California, Irvine, argues that these kinds of breakdowns further America’s distrust of voting. In his new book, Election Meltdown, and a corresponding Slate podcast series, Hasen argues that voter suppression, election interference, and incendiary rhetoric all erode the public’s confidence in democracy. The Observer spoke with Hasen about his book and what happened in Texas on Super Tuesday.
