Summary: Election Integrity is still -- and should always be -- an important issue in the 88th TX Legislative Session. Current bills include the following: banning ranked choice voting (RCV); returning management of elections to elected officials; federal penalty for illegal voting - again; replacing Harris County election officials; banning college campus polling locations; civil administrative review process for various officials in charge of elections; establishing election marshals to prevent voting violations; increasing voter access for people with disabilities. / State civics is an integral part of Willow Park civics and of Willow Park Civics. Willow Park Civics is providing a blog of articles on specific legislative topics, during the 88th Texas Legislative Session. We will update and repost this blog as new information develops about ELECTION INTEGRITY legislation.
Latest Update: Friday, 17 March, 2023
Select #Tags for additional articles: #StateLegislation
Election Integrity
Week ending Friday, 17 March 2023
• Texas to Create Its Own Voter Roll Crosscheck Program, Texas Scorecard, 16 March 2023, Excerpts. Texas election officials are developing a new program to improve the accuracy of the state’s voter rolls by comparing them with voter lists in other states, preparing for a possible exit from the controversial ERIC “crosscheck” service they currently use to identify voters who register and vote in multiple states. The Texas secretary of state, who is the state’s chief election official, announced last week that longtime Elections Director Keith Ingram will now serve in “a newly-created position to develop and manage an interstate voter registration crosscheck program.”
• Texas Senate gives first OK to make illegal voting a felony again, The Texas Tribune, 13 March 2023, Excerpts. The Texas Senate on Tuesday gave final approval, on a 19–12 vote, to legislation that would raise the penalty for voting illegally from a misdemeanor to a felony, a priority for Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and other conservative lawmakers who have worked to remake the state’s voting laws since the 2020 election, despite the lack of evidence of widespread voter fraud in Texas.
Senate Bill 2 [Legiscan] heads next to the lower chamber for consideration. If the bill becomes law, a person found guilty of the crime could face up to 20 years in prison and more than $10,000 in fines.
• Texas Senate Debates Restoring Felony Penalty for Illegal Voting, Texas Scorecard, 13 March 2023
• Texas Senate Votes to Restore Illegal Voting to Felony Offense, The Texan, 13 March 2023
• Senate State Affairs Committee Holds Hearings for Five Election Law Reform Bills, The Texan, 13 March 2023, Excerpts. The Texas Senate State Affairs Committee kicked off the week with hearings on a slate of election-related legislation, which drew several hours of public testimony on each bill.
Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola) who chairs the committee, was the author of two of the five election law bills considered on Monday: Senate Bill (SB) 747 and SB 921.
SB 921 [Legiscan] drew the most attention, seeking to clarify that ranked choice voting (RCV) is prohibited under Texas election law, as previous opinions by the Texas Attorney General and Secretary of State have found. Hughes’ other bill before the committee, SB 747 [Legiscan], was filed in response to several primary election runoffs where one of the two runoff candidates withdrew and the other was declared the winner.
Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) also had two bills before the committee, including SB 221 [Legiscan], which establishes guidelines for home-rule cities holding referendum elections to ensure the language clearly communicates to the voters what the measure does.
• Texas lawmakers file bills to return management of elections to elected officials, The Center Square, 10 March 2023, Excerpts.
Two Houston area lawmakers filed bills to return management of elections to election officials after numerous lawsuits were filed in Harris County over multiple irregularities stemming from changes to how elections were managed in 2020 and 2022. State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, and Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, filed SB 1750 [Legiscan] and HB 3876 [Legiscan], respectively, “to restore voter trust, accountability, and transparency in large county elections by returning the management of elections back to elected officials,” they said in a joint statement.
• Texas Lawmakers Seek to Replace ‘Elections Administrators’ with Elected Officials in Large Counties, The Texan, 08 March 2023
Week ending Friday, 03 March, 2023
• Texas lawmakers take first step to restoring felony penalty for illegal voting, The Texas Tribune, 27 February 2023, Excerpts. A bill that would reestablish illegal voting as a felony in Texas received its initial approval Monday from a state Senate committee.
The legislation — a priority of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s — would reverse the work lawmakers did two years ago when they approved sweeping changes to the state’s election law that included downgrading a conviction of illegal voting to a misdemeanor.
The early vote by the Senate State Affairs Committee is further evidence how important the legislation is to Senate leadership. However, because elections issues are not among Gov. Greg Abbott’s seven legislative priorities for the session, the entire Senate cannot debate the bill until after March 10.
The committee voted along party lines after lawmakers heard testimony from more than a dozen election workers, local political party chairs, voting rights advocates and others.
Authored by state Sens. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, and Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, the bill restores the penalty of illegal voting to a second-degree felony. The bill would also change the standard for determining someone’s intent for illegal voting.
• Two GOP legislators in Harris County want to let the state replace local elections administrators, The Texas Tribune, 27 February 2023, Excerpts. House and Senate bills filed by Republican lawmakers in response to Harris County’s mismanagement of its recent elections could give the Texas secretary of state the authority to step in, suspend county election administrators when a complaint is filed and appoint a replacement administrator.
Election administration experts told Votebeat the legislation was an overreaction to the desire to hold Harris County accountable for years of election mismanagement, and would disrupt the state’s ability to help county election offices improve and address systemic problems.
• Texas Lawmaker Files Bill to Ban College Campus Polling Locations, The Texan, 23 February 2023, Excerpts. Rep. Carrie Isaac (R-Wimberly) has introduced a bill that would ban polling places on college campuses.
House Bill (HB) 2390 [Legiscan] would take effect September 1, 2023 and prohibit campus polling places as designated by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. / Defined as all state universities and junior colleges, an “institution of higher education” would not be designatable as a polling place by the commissioners court of any county.
This filing by Isaac can be seen as a response to Rep. Gina Hinojosa’s (D-Austin) HB 644 [Legiscan], which allows counties to designate polling places at the location of college campuses if at least 8,000 students are enrolled.
Republicans have filed a variety of election-related bills for the 88th Legislative Session, garnering both public support and opposition.
Week ending Friday, 24 February, 2023
• Sens. Bettencourt, Hughes File Bill to Create ‘Civil Administrative Review Process’ for Elections, The Texan 20 February 2023, Excerpts. Sens. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) and Bryan Hughes (R-Tyler) filed a bill in the Texas Senate to set up a “civil administrative review process” for various officials in charge of elections, Bettencourt’s office announced Monday. Senate Bill (SB) 1039 [Legiscan] was filed with the Secretary of the Senate on Friday. However, the text of the bill was not yet available on the Legislature’s website as of the time of publication.
“SB 1039 is just common-sense transparency legislation that increases the public’s confidence in the election process as we can’t have anyone in an elections administration not answering questions from the public,” Bettencourt said in a news release.
“This bill lets the public ask questions and elected officials answer them just like what should be occurring to set up a civil discourse, just like it used to happen, and used to be the standard for best election practices.”
Bettencourt represents part of Harris County, which was the only county that did not turn in its election results to the Texas secretary of state within two days of the election.
In the news release published Monday, the senator’s office claimed that 1,300 ballots were discovered in Williamson County after the votes had been canvassed. There were “thousands of election irregularities uncovered” after last year’s general election, according to the statement.
SB 1039 would give recourse to election judges, candidates, county chairs of political parties, state chairs of political parties, presiding judges, alternative presiding judges, and the heads of some political action committees who suspect “election irregularities.” After two questions and answers, SB 1039 would allow the complainant to go to the secretary of state and ask for an audit and the assignment of a “conservator” to take over that “election authority.”
• Texas Senate revives effort to make illegal voting a felony, The Texas Tribune, 23 February 2023, Excepts. Lawmakers lowered the penalty to a misdemeanor in 2021, but then almost immediately began discussing raising it back. Senate Bill 2, filed Tuesday by state Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, would also change the standard for determining someone’s intent for illegal voting, according to policy experts. The law as enacted under SB 1 says a person commits a crime if they “knowingly or intentionally” vote or attempt to vote in an election in which the person “knows they’re not eligible” to vote. Hughes’ new bill changes that language so that anyone who votes or attempts to vote in an election in which “the person knows of a particular circumstance that makes the person not eligible to vote” could face charges.
• More than 100 election-related bills filed in 88th Texas legislative session, KVEW ABC, 11 January 2023, Excerpts. Already, more than 100 election-related bills have been filed, according to former state representative and University of Texas political expert Sherri Greenberg.
When the Texas Legislature met in 2021, things got heated. Some Democrats broke quorum and fled to Washington, D.C., in an effort to stop what they called a voter suppression bill. After three special sessions, Senate Bill 1 was passed, tightening voting laws, banning drive-thru voting, changing early voting hours and restricting voter assistance for people with disabilities. Republicans said the bill makes it easier to vote but harder to cheat.
HB 39 [Legiscan] would make election fraud a felony again. SB 220 [Legiscan] and HB 549 [Legiscan] relate to establishing election marshals to prevent voting violations. HB 1145, HB 1070 and SB 92 would allow online voter registration.
Another notable bill, HB 296 [Legiscan], from Democratic State Rep. John Bucy, would increase voter access for people with disabilities by adding parking priority and expanding access to mail-in ballots to those who qualify.
• Republicans File Election Bills to Bolster Fraud Prosecutions After Court Strips Attorney General’s Power, The Texan, 17 January 2023, Excepts.
State Reps. Keith Bell (R-Forney) and Bryan Slaton (R-Royse City) filed legislation to work around a decision by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) gutting Attorney General Ken Paxton’s authority to prosecute election fraud on his own volition.
Bell’s House Bill (HB) 678 [Legiscan] would empower special prosecutors from adjacent counties to prosecute election crimes at the request of the attorney general. The two-page bill also repeals a statute that hinges on a law found unconstitutional by the CCA.
Slaton’s bill, HB 125, [Legiscan] empowers the attorney general to file suit against a district or county attorney who explicitly or by “pattern or practice” declines to prosecute certain crimes under the election code. Officials who flouted the election code would also be subject to removal from office, an outcome the attorney general would be required to pursue under HB 125.
Republicans designed the Election Integrity Protection Act of 2021 with the attorney general’s authority to prosecute alleged violations of the election code in mind. Without the attorney general’s involvement, decisions to prosecute are left to local district and county attorneys.
• Election Integrity Law at Risk After Court of Criminal Appeals Rules Only County, District Attorneys Can Prosecute Fraud, The Texan, 17 December 2021, Excepts. The appellate court, which has the final word in criminal cases, decided that Sheriff Zena Stephens cannot be prosecuted by the attorney general. On Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which is composed entirely of Republican judges, ruled in an 8 to 1 decision that a state statute granting the Texas attorney general the authority to prosecute violations of election law is unconstitutional primarily on separation of powers grounds.
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