In Texas, an African American man who waited over six hours to cast a vote in March of 2020 faces up to 40 years in prison for “illegal voting.” Sixty-two-year-old Hervis Earl Rogers was arrested on Wednesday and charged with violating a Texas law barring people with felony convictions from casting ballots. He remained in jail for three days until the nonprofit group The Bail Project paid his $100,000 bail. Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton ordered Rogers’s arrest just before the start of a special legislative session in Texas in which Republicans are pressing new voter suppression laws — and trying to make it more difficult for people arrested to post cash bail. On Tuesday, President Biden is set to deliver a major voting rights speech in Philadelphia.
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