Editing Waller County, Texas (section)

===Voting controversies===
A history of controversies exists regarding the reluctance of county officials to allow students attending [[Historically Black colleges and universities|historically black]] [[Prairie View A&M University]] to vote in Waller County.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/us/28texas.html "2 Voter Rights Cases, One Gripping a College Town, Stir Texas" by Ralph Blumenthal], ''New York Times'', May 28, 2008</ref><ref>[http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/katy-news/article/Judges-slap-Waller-voter-rules-give-hand-to-1779069.php "Judges slap Waller voter rules, give hand to Prairie View" by Cindy George], ''Houston Chronicle'' October 24, 2008</ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20110717130309/http://www.usstudents.org/press-room/articles/february-2008/prairie-view-students-experiencing-voting-problems-in-waller-county-texas/?searchterm=voter]

As reported by the US District Court (Southern District of Texas, Corpus Christi Division) in ''Veasey v Perry'', October 2014 (CIVIL ACTION NO. 13-CV-00193), pp 6–7 verbatim:
* In 1971, after the 26th Amendment extended the vote to those 18 years old and older, Waller County, which was home to Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU), a historically Black university, became troubled with race issues. Waller County's tax assessor and voter registrar prohibited students from voting unless they or their families owned property in the county. This practice was ended by a three-judge court in 1979.
* In 1992, a county prosecutor indicted PVAMU students for illegally voting, but dropped the charges after receiving a protest from the DOJ.
* In 2003, a PVAMU student ran for the commissioner's court. The local district attorney and county attorney threatened to prosecute students for voter fraud—for not meeting the old domicile test. These threatened prosecutions were enjoined, but Waller County then reduced early voting hours, which was particularly harmful to students because the election day was during their spring break. After the NAACP filed suit, Waller County reversed the changes to early voting and the student narrowly won the election.
* In 2007–08, during then Senator Barack Obama's campaign for president, Waller County made a number of voting changes without seeking clearance. The county rejected "incomplete" voter registrations and required volunteer deputy registrars (VDRs) to personally find and notify the voters of the rejection. The county also limited the number of new registrations any VDR could submit, thus limiting the success of voter registration drives. These practices were eventually prohibited by a consent decree.

In 2018, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit in U.S. district court, alleging that the county's early-voting plan unduly limits early voting opportunities for students at Prairie View A&M.<ref>[https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/11/prairie-view-m-students-file-suit-over-voting-hours/574600/ "Fighting for the Right to Vote in a Tiny Texas County" by Vann R. Newkirk II and Adam Harris], ''The Atlantic'' magazine.</ref>  On October 10, Jacob Aronowitz, a field director for Democratic U.S. House candidate Mike Siegel, delivered a letter from Siegel, which indicated a solution to attempts to keep students at Prairie View A&M University from voting, to a clerk on the county executive's staff. As a result, Aronowitz was arrested for what he was told was "48 hour investigative detention."<ref>{{Cite web|last1=Eversden|first1=Andrew|last2=Platoff|first2=Emma|date=October 11, 2018|title=Campaign for congressional candidate Mike Siegel disputes account of worker's arrest|url=https://www.texastribune.org/2018/10/11/campaign-congressional-candidate-mike-siegel-disputes-account-workers-/|access-date=May 15, 2021|website=The Texas Tribune|language=en}}</ref>