1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

I am writing to express my dismay at the idea of ICE monitoring polling places in Texas. As a volunteer poll worker since 2020, I have seen first hand such measures are completely unnecessary. The system in place already ensures non-citizens cannot vote. My task, and that of my fellow poll workers, is to assure that. Those claiming voting fraud occurs at our polling places are creating a straw man argument to sow fear and discord. Such intervention would also violate the Constitution’s Article I, Section 4, which explicitly grants the States the authority to manage the "Times, Places and Manner" of elections. This was a deliberate choice by the Founders to prevent any single federal entity from consolidating power over the very process that seats them. We must maintain the decentralized structure of our republic, as well our independence as a state. Not doing so would strip local communities of their ability to govern their own voting procedures, and places oversight in the hands of distant, unelected bureaucracies. I urge you to stand firmly against any mandate that overrides our state’s sovereignty over its own elections. We must protect the Constitution and the legal boundaries that keep our elections secure and local.