Is there any doubt Greg Abbot is an unnecessarily cruel piece of shit?

[Stinky The Clown]

Would that I could have the opportunity, I'd like to repay the favor. Lock him in a room where the toilet is two steps up.

Yeah. I know. I can think of no one who deserves it more.

[elleng]

1. NO DOUBT,

which gives me 'pause' about Texas' electorate. WTF???

[Lithos]

2. Texas' problem is that it does not vote

The GOP recognizing the shift in demographics took it upon themselves to gerrymander and establish a huge number of barriers to those who would not vote against them.

Work hourly from paycheck to paycheck? The GOP has you covered!

* Require an ID which is only obtained after waiting hours;
* Remove the ability to vote by mail, R
* Reduce the number of polling places to increase wait times and in some cases drive times.
* Reduce the number of early voting days to force you to vote on Tuesday
* Do not allow people to give you water in line - making summer voting problemantic

[elleng]

4. of course they did,

they can't win 'straight,' fair elections, so they skew the requirements.

[Lithos]

8. Yes, of course they did

Texas has long been a test bed for the GOP's gaming of democracy.

[yellowdogintexas]

9. The water in line thing was not Texas, that was Georgia. Good thing too, since it's a lot hotter here.

Disclaimer: I am NOT attempting to make Texas look good with the following info, but we have bad, ugly and mostly OK here; just clarifying a few things. our Legislature and Secretary of State are in charge of all this. All Abbott does is sign off if needed. He does so much that is so much more awful anyway Our Gov is beyond despicable and his horribleness is cruel beyond belief. Our voting issues, while imperfect do not hold a candle to the stuff he does

We have a real mix of good and bad voting issues across Texas which vary significantly from county to county.

Interestingly, I was told at my last County Democratic Executive Meeting that state wide we are adding 350 voting locations . Of course I do not know where yet, but every county is beating the bushes for election workers to work the 2024 elections as it is now, so adding locations is going to just make that worse

We do have a longstanding problem with certain counties not allowing voting locations on college campuses. Locations are handled on a county to county basis, so what we do here in Tarrant does not necessarily apply elsewhere. I do know that the county where Prairie View (an HBCU college) is located will not place a voting location on the campus, which is several miles from a town. Every election those students literally "March to the Polls" in huge numbers, essentially covering the road edge to edge for miles. I do not know what difficulties they might encounter when they get to the polls. There is another county which is fighting the placement of a voting location on a very large state university campus - 24000 students.

Of course no student IDs are accepted for voting

We have 95 counties (including all the higher population ones) where we can go to any location in the county to vote on Election Day, which does away with overcrowding and long lines in popular locations. (Harris/Houston is one of those counties; I am suspicious that some hanky panky went on there, just not sure exactly what.) Voters can go on line and find nearby locations and even check wait times. Election workers can redirect voters to other locations when they arrive if the lines are long. I have 5 locations within a 10 minute drive from my house & we had 325 locations in 2022, It is the best thing ever.

Our Horrid County Judge had this big idea to do away with Early Voting, Mail in voting, and county wide voting. Also return to all paper ballots, hand counted before ballots leave the location! This would have clogged up our local voting places severely, slowed down results significantly, and doubled the cost of elections. Not to mention the $2 million worth of brand new equipment which would be scrapped. The County Commissioners, City officials, Elections office and party chairs advised him how much it would increase the cost of elections, plus wasting all that equipment. He has backed down on everything. One thing about this guy, if you prove to him that his harebrained schemes are going to double costs, he will stop and think about it. But that is just one county, of course

so far, we are holding fast on vote by mail but you have to request your ballot and you have to be over 65 or disabled or out of the voting area from the beginning of early voting through Election Day. This is a state thing, so it is the same everywhere

So much of what we do here is county by county, especially with locations, EV days and times but the state does define some things. The state mandates Early Voting but does not mandate the way it is handled at the local level. The county decides where and how many locations are available and the number of dates for EV

After a lawsuit in 2012, the ID rules were modified, and you wouldn't know this unless you work elections and have to read the rules. There are now a number of excellent exceptions on the ID requirements which are very helpful to the voters and the workers.

What is new and is a royal mess is having to put your SS # or your DL # on the application for the mail in ballot, and it must be the same thing you used when you registered to vote!! WTAF!! And the first year the forms made it really hard to fit those numbers in. This past year the form was modified and there is plenty of room for the numbers, instructions are in a large font and in red, and a note to use both numbers if you do not know what you used on your original voter application. This all came about of course because somebody figured out that the Mail in Ballots did not have any ID requirements!!! After years and years! This is a state thing

[Paladin]

14. Thanks for the noble effort, pointing out the decent aspects of Texas.

It won't work with the drooling Texas haters, but never doubt that your efforts are appreciated.

[yellowdogintexas]

16. thank you. We have lots of problems here and there is voter suppression however...

the fact is we Democrats do not turn out. Period. The reasons are legion.

The stuff our gov and lege get away with are horrible. If we vote them out, things can begin to change.

At least the lege voted an increase in pension for retired teachers, and a huge property tax break for homeowners.

[GoCubsGo]

3. None, whatsoever.

The same goes for every last person responsible for electing him in the first place, and then re-electing this sadistic pile of human garbage.

[struggle4progress]

5. In Hell, they'll tangle him onto his wheelchair with razorwire and toss him into the Styx

"As you measure so will it be measured to you"

[Stallion]

6. The Man is the Cover-Boy for Hypocracy

he earned his chops in Texas by pushing for caps on punitive damages on negligence claims-when he himself earned millions of uncapped punitive damages after being paralyzed due to falling tree in his 20s

[Skittles]

7. he is a "pro-life christian"

so of course there is no doubt

[UTUSN]

10. ABBUTT should be dubbed "Coyote, governor Coyote," since he's smuggling people.

[uponit7771]

11. Texas has lowest voter access in the Union, Abbott is a dictator Texans can't get rid of

[yellowdogintexas]

17. we have good access in 95 of our counties, starting with the high population ones

because we can vote at any location in the county on Election Day. Seriously, in these counties no one should feel they have to stand in a long line because there will be a number of other nearby locations to use.

We had a bottle neck at a subcourthouse near my location and we let Elections Central know we were very quiet so the courthouse could redirect voters. Not to mention there were 3 other locations within a 5 minute drive. Folks just jammed that courthouse because everybody knows all the courthouses are open voting locations.

We did get a lot of the overflow traffic from the courthouse and the regional library nearby.

There were issues in Harris county and I don't really understand it except for poor planning on the part of the elections office. It is a blue county and the counties manage every aspect of the elections. There is no reason they should have run out of ballots for example. (I don't know their system, but our ballots start out blank, and our machine prints the voter's choices after voting. If a location uses up all their paper, all they have to do is call in to the office and the office will get paper to them, probably from another nearby location.

Harris county has about 600 open voting locations on Election Day, and any voter can use any location. We have 300 or so. Since we started with this system, we have never had to turn away a voter for being in the "wrong" location. So again, I do not know why Harris got into such a mess. Of course the Rs were delighted to jump all over them and even try to have the state take over the running of elections - Harris is the largest blue county after all.

Every county has its own voting machine system, and we still have a few rural low population counties with hand marked preprinted ballots. These are counties with maybe 1000 registered voters countywide.

[uponit7771]

18. Texas ranks near the bottom of voter access in a multitude of studies, including this one. (Link)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/changing-america/respect/accessibility/3665190-these-are-the-hardest-states-to-vote-in/amp/

[alterfurz]

13. Compared to his withered, shriveled soul, Abbott's wheelchair* is merely a minor handicap.

*Some here may not know that after receiving a huge settlement in his paralyzing accident, Abbott later worked with the insurance industry to alter TX law to drastically cap court-awarded personal injury payouts. Greg Abbott: the kind of asshole other assholes look at and say, "Now THERE'S an asshole!"

[eShirl]

15. He never read the "what you do unto the least of these, you do to me" part from the sayings of Jesus.

Why Greg? Why do you make Baby Jesus cry?

[LudwigPastorius]

19. Abbott is 150 pounds of liquid cow shit stuffed into a Hefty bag.