HOUSTON, Texas — Last week, the nation learned about True The Vote, a Houston-based tea party group that fans out to heavily-minority precincts and challenges voters’ ballots.
As they work to suppress voters this election, across town, a far different story was unfolding: scores of volunteers fanning out not to stop people from voting, but to help them vote.
See Also: Yes Watch The Polls, But Realize All Voters May Not Get There Chance To Vote In This Election
ThinkProgress was on the ground for the first annual National Voter Registration Day, a nationwide event for grassroots groups to help register voters. (The day was designed to take place prior to October 6, when Texas and a handful of other states have their registration deadline.) We attended numerous events throughout the day, including a radio-hyped registration table outside a breakfast diner, a hip-hop concert where tickets were distributed to those who registered and/or pledged to vote, and a comedy show where the comic interspersed jokes with pleas for young folks to get out and vote.
Watch a short video with highlights from the day:
As they work to suppress voters this election, across town, a far different story was unfolding: scores of volunteers fanning out not to stop people from voting, but to help them vote.
See Also: Yes Watch The Polls, But Realize All Voters May Not Get There Chance To Vote In This Election
ThinkProgress was on the ground for the first annual National Voter Registration Day, a nationwide event for grassroots groups to help register voters. (The day was designed to take place prior to October 6, when Texas and a handful of other states have their registration deadline.) We attended numerous events throughout the day, including a radio-hyped registration table outside a breakfast diner, a hip-hop concert where tickets were distributed to those who registered and/or pledged to vote, and a comedy show where the comic interspersed jokes with pleas for young folks to get out and vote.
Watch a short video with highlights from the day:
Last year, Texas passed some of the worst anti-voter legislation of any state in the country. They enacted a voter ID law, which allowed voters to bring a gun license to the polls but not a student ID; it has since been blocked by the Department of Justice. In addition, they are on the leading edge of states passing new, onerous restrictions on voter registration groups like the League of Women Voters.
Still, despite the new regulations making their job more difficult, voter registration groups were out in full force Tuesday, doing their best to get as many people as possible registered to vote.
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