A Texas Republican is working to introduce two bills that would keep polling facilities from being erected in most educational facilities, saying "heightened emotions" can affect school safety.
State Rep. Carrie Isaac filed a bill last week seeking to bar polling places from any "institution of higher education." She said on Tuesday that she is working on another bill that would prohibit polling places in K-12 public schools and charter schools.
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“We must do everything we can to make our school campuses as safe as possible,” she said in a release, per NBC News. “I have experienced firsthand the heightened emotions that often occur at polling locations, and I will not wait for more violence to act.”
In her release, Isaac cited the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last year and a deadly knife attack at the University of Texas, Austin, in 2017 that left one dead and four injured. However, neither incident had anything to do with voting.
MOVE Texas, a group dedicated to mobilizing young voters across the state, condemned the bill in a statement on Twitter.
"We reside in a state infamous for restricting the freedom to vote," MOVE Texas's statement said. "Every legislative session, extremist politicians take the opportunity to invent new and novel ways to further suppress the vote and attack the power of our communities."
The group cited long voting lines and polling locations spread out across the state, which are two points of contention for several states.
MOVE Texas wrote college polling locations in Texas already have "notoriously long" lines and that policymakers should focus on making voting more accessible and efficient.
"Instead, HB 2390 does the opposite," the group wrote. "It disenfranchises young Texans not just from voting [but] from carrying out civic responsibilities in a bold-faced and targeted manner. ... 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."
Only 50% of the state's 36 public universities had an on-campus polling location for the 2022 midterm elections, according to a Texas Tribune analysis. Texas A&M University received a $3,000 grant that allowed the university's 14-passenger shuttle buses to provide three trips on Oct. 28 for early voting, and it ran the buses every 20 minutes on Election Day.
Young voter turnout has surged in recent years, particularly in Texas. The number of young Texas voters jumped from 8% in 2014 to 25.8% in 2018. Overall, young voter turnout drove the national Democratic push against the expected Republican red wave, resulting in Democrats keeping control of the Senate and forcing a narrow Republican majority in the House.
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To combat Isaac's bill, Democrats in Texas introduced legislation on Feb. 15 that would mandate polling sites on larger college campuses. It is in the state legislature's State Affairs Committee.
While Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) and Texas Republicans have taken aim at election rules and voting in past years, Abbott is focusing on different priorities, including property tax reform, tightening bail restrictions, and addressing the fentanyl and border crisis.