Texas lawmaker proposes bill to prohibit polling places at colleges

A Texas lawmaker has proposed a bill to prohibit colleges and universities from having polling places on campus — and would go into effect as early as September.

Texas state Rep. Carrie Isaac (R) introduced the proposal on Thursday to prevent all counties in the state from designating a polling place location on the campus of an institution of higher education. 

The state’s law defines an institution of higher education as any public technical institute, public junior college, public senior college or university, medical or dental unit, public state college or other agency of higher education. 

If passed, the bill would take effect Sept. 1. 

The San Antonio Express-News reported on Friday that the earliest that most bills can go into effect if they do not receive support from two-thirds of the state legislature is August 27. 

Republicans control a majority of both houses of the state legislature. 

The outlet reported that the bill comes after another was filed that would require counties to include a certain number of polling locations on college campuses based on the size of their enrollment. 

Isaac said in a Tuesday statement announcing her filing of the bill that she is concerned with students’ safety in the aftermath of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May and a stabbing at The University of Texas at Austin.

“We must protect places of education where our children and young people gather,” she said. “As a mom with one child on a college campus and one on a public school campus, I think about the safety of my sons and their classmates regularly. I have been working on a package of campus safety legislation that I believe will help protect open college, public school, and charter school campuses.”

She added that she is also drafting a piece of legislation to ban polling places from K-12 public and charter schools and another to expand the state’s school marshal program to include volunteers from members of the military and officers.

MOVE Texas, a nonprofit organization that seeks to make underrepresented youth communities civically active, denounced Isaac’s proposal in a statement, calling it an “unmistakable” and “blatant” way to suppress people’s right to vote. 

The group said lawmakers should address the issue of long lines and wait times at polling locations on college campuses by expanding the number of available locations, instead of prohibiting them. 

“In filing this bill, State Representative Carrie Isaac is making it clear that she is not interested in serving the needs of Texas’s constituents,” the statement reads. “But the needs, hopes, and lived experiences of our young people are essential to our democracy and will not be taken for granted.”

Updated on Feb. 25 at 4:20 p.m.