Texas is ground zero for baseless voter fraud claims

Another day, another tweet from our President that sets off alarm bells around the country. During one of his impulsive twitter frenzies, President Trump called for a “major investigation into voter fraud,” as part of his false and outrageous claim that he lost the popular vote for president due to improper votes being cast.

It’s disappointing that the president insists on pressing a blatantly and demonstrably false claim. However, the greater damage is that – either through intent or delusion – he is undermining the American public’s trust in our democracy and giving cover to state leaders in Texas and other places who use phony voter fraud claims to justify voter suppression and discrimination.

{mosads}The facts are in, and it’s not even a close call. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud during the 2016 elections or any relatively recent election. Multiple studies at the state and federal level confirm this fact. When current Texas Gov. Greg Abbott served as state Attorney General, his own high profile investigation led to only one conviction and one guilty plea that involved in-person voter fraud in all Texas elections from 2002 through 2014.

A 2007 report by the Brennan Center for Justice also found miniscule rates of voter fraud. In fact, a specialized United States Department of Justice unit formed with the goal of finding instances of federal election fraud examined the 2002 and 2004 federal elections, where they were only able to prove that 0.00000013 percent of ballots cast were fraudulent.

I know from firsthand experience that claims of non-existent voter fraud are used to raise fears, steamroll facts and overcome commonsense resulting in laws that have nothing to do with ballot security and everything to do with voter suppression and discrimination.

For years, Texas Republican leaders have relied on laws designed to weaken and undermine the voting strength of my state’s growing minority population – all under the guise of protecting voting integrity. In 2011, when I was serving as a state representative, Texas Republican leaders adopted the most restrictive voter photo ID law in the country. The entire rationale for the new law was the need to address voter fraud – yet not a single shred of credible evidence of actual voter fraud was ever presented. What was demonstrated – first in the legislature and later in court – was that the new law had a harmful and discriminatory effect on African American and Hispanic Texans.

When the Texas voter ID law was adopted, the U.S. Voting Rights Act was still at full strength, and the new law was initially blocked by the courts. However, after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Texas Republicans – led by then Attorney General Greg Abbott – immediately began enforcing the discriminatory Texas Voter ID law. Since then, the law has been the subject of an intense and bitter federal voting rights lawsuit. Four separate court reviews all concluded that the Texas law is illegally discriminatory.

As the lead plaintiff in Veasey v. Abbott, I’m proud of our fight and the progress made.  The fight is far from over, and more litigation lies ahead as Texas Republican leaders continue their efforts to suppress participation in elections and undermine the growing voting strength of minority voters.

So President Trump’s twitter rant about voter fraud and his call for major investigation are more than self-delusion and insecurity over losing the popular vote.  He is eroding trust in the democratic process itself and enabling politicians holding power by weakening voter protections and undermining the voting rights of citizens whose support they can’t win or won’t earn.

After years of fighting we now find ourselves, in a post Shelby v. Holder era where Texas Republicans and President Trump claim that widespread voter fraud is the reason they’re attempting to protect the ballot box to disguise their true goal: voter suppression.

Instead of continuing with his empty crusade against voter fraud, President Trump should urge his Republican colleagues in Congress to work with Democrats to update the 1965 Voting Rights Act and restore the right to vote to all American citizens. Otherwise, he is complicit in making voter suppression the new normal.

Rep. Marc Veasey represents Texas’ 33rd District in the U.S. House of Representatives, which includes Dallas-Fort Worth.

The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill.