Republicans in Texas want to ban voting on college campuses — a move critics say is a blatant attempt to disenfranchise an overwhelmingly Democratic voting bloc. 

The author of the legislation, Representative Carrie Isaac, told KBTX that she filed the bill in order to protect students, saying polling places at universities draw in unwanted visitors from outside the school community.  

“There’s a lot of opportunity there for people to be places they shouldn’t be,” Mrs. Isaac said. “I just know in this session this is going to be a topic we cover intensely — school safety. I just believe these are a couple areas we can improve on.”

The one-page bill states that “a county may not designate as a polling place a location on the campus of an institution of higher education.”

Mrs. Isaac said she has the support of the governor in her effort. “It’s going to be a hot topic this legislative session. Governor Greg Abbott made this an emergency item.”

The bill was met with swift criticism from Democrats and voting rights organizations. 

A liberal voting rights advocacy group, Democracy Docket, said the bill is an underhanded attempt to tamp down youth turnout. The legislation “would make it more difficult for students in the state to vote by requiring students to travel further from their campuses to do so,” the group said in a statement. It pointed out that Mrs. Isaac “represents Hays County, which includes Texas State University, the 5th largest university in the state with over 38,000 students.”

Texas has considered a number of measures in recent years that would alter voting procedures in the state. In 2019, Mr. Abbott signed a law that banned temporary early voting locations on college campuses, and in 2021 the state adopted a law that restricted residency requirements for voting. Students whose primary residence is outside the state are no longer allowed to cast ballots in Texas elections. 

The state legislature will also consider a bill that would create an elections crime unit, following the lead of Governor DeSantis, who established a law enforcement unit to pursue those accused of voter fraud in Florida. The legislation in Texas would allow the secretary of state to hire “elections marshals” to investigate alleged voting crimes. 

According to the Texas Tribune, at least 75 bills have been filed in the legislature related to elections and voting. 

The college students who would be affected by Mrs. Isaac’s bill are a significant voting bloc for Democrats. According to a report from Tufts University, youth voters were a decisive factor in several key races in which Democrats prevailed in the 2022 midterm elections. 

Voters ages 18-29 typically have a turnout rate of about 20 percent in midterm elections. After climbing to more than 30 percent in 2018, turnout dipped slightly to 27 percent last year. Young people overwhelmingly preferred Democrats in those elections. According to the Tufts report, Democrats won the 18-29 age group by 28 points. 

In five key races last year — the gubernatorial elections in Arizona and Wisconsin, as well as the Senate races in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire — the Democratic candidates won the support of more than 70 percent of those under the age of 30, helping all five Democrats win.