Conspiracies and lies aside, the political sea change the citizen voting age population (CVAP) wrought in 2006 in Dallas County and 2008 in Harris County is the reason Texas Republicans keep passing restrictive voting laws.
The 2006 and 2008 Elections were turning points in Dallas and Harris County. After more than a decade of Republican Party electoral dominance largely due to White voters, the declining White citizen voting age population (CVAP) and the growing Latino, African American and Asian CVAP began to be reflected in the election results. By mid-decade, according to the 2005-2009 American Community Survey, the White (non-Hispanic) citizen voting age population had dropped to about 50% in these counties. As a result, in conjunction with established race and ethnic group voting tendencies, in the 2006 midterm election, in Dallas County, Democratic Party candidates won every countywide contest in which the party fielded a candidate. Similarly, in 2008, in Harris County, Barack Obama, the Democratic Party nominee for President, won, and almost every Democrat involved in a countywide contest finished first.
The impact of the changing citizen voting age population (CVAP) is clear, if one compares the total votes received by candidates involved in countywide contests appearing at the bottom of the ballot in the 2000 election versus the 2020 election. In twenty-years, in the Dallas County race for Sheriff, the votes cast for the Republican increased by only 6% while the votes for the Democrat increased by 116%. Likewise, in the Harris County race for Tax Assessor Collector, the votes cast for the Republican increased by 31% while the votes for the Democrat increased by 124%.
The 2014-2018 American Community Survey population estimates for Dallas and Harris County explain the Republican Party’s vote growth dilemma. Going into the 2018 and 2020 elections, the Survey estimates that the White citizen voting age population was down to 43% in Dallas County and 41% in Harris County. The survey also estimates that the White CVAP has dropped to 52% in Texas. In other words, the non-White CVAP statewide is nearing the level that cause Republicans to lose Dallas and Harris County. The difference is that at 13%, the Black CVAP is still significantly lower statewide than it was in Dallas and Harris County in 2006 and 2008.
These election results in Dallas and Harris County suggest that the shrinking White citizen voting age population is why Republicans have not won a countywide office in even numbered year elections in which minorities have been motivated to go to the polls in the state’s largest counties.
The 2006 and 2008 election results in Dallas and Harris County is the reason Republicans spent the second half of the first decade of the new millennium introducing bills requiring voters to present an acceptable form of government issued photo identification at the polls. Inevitably, the Texas Legislature passed the Photo ID law in 2011 under the guise of “voter fraud,” after conservative extremists helped increase the Republican advantage in the House of Representatives from 51% to 66%.
It seems obvious that the intent of restrictive voting laws, like Photo ID, the elimination of Straight-Party voting and Senate Bill 1 is to stop the impact the changing citizen voting age population is having in Dallas and Harris County and to ensure similar outcomes are not replicated at the statewide level.
History shows that passing laws to impede minorities from accessing or impacting the voting process is what happens when the electoral and governing supremacy of the ruling group is endangered. Sadly, anti-voting laws confirm the continuing existence of a Jim Crow era mentality that is not averse to using positions of power to game the system in favor of non-minorities.
Worst, anti-voting initiatives evince that there are still too many Americans at all levels of society unwilling to accept a political landscape produced by the reality of a diverse electorate.
