Texas Republicans single out one blue county as they push election bills

Texas Republicans are advancing legislation that would allow state authorities to remove local election officials, designate marshals to investigate voting complaints and single out the state’s most populous county by giving it its own election rules. One bill would change who oversees elections in Harris County, a Democratic stronghold that includes Houston and its suburbs. Another would give the secretary of state the ability to order a new election in the county if ballots are temporarily unavailable. Republicans, who control the state legislature, say the measures are in part a response to problems last year in Harris, where about 10,000 ballots weren’t immediately counted in one election and in another some polling places ran out of ballots. Opponents decry the legislation as an attack on voting in a community where the majority of residents are people of color.