Texas Senate on track to pass bill that would make it harder to vote

AUSTIN — The Texas Senate on Wednesday was on track to pass a bill that would limit early voting hours, restrict the amount of voting machines available at countywide polling places and take power over election administration away from local officials.

Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, said Senate Bill 7 was meant to protect election integrity, an issue that GOP officials have galvanized around since former President Donald Trump began an attack on the veracity of the 2020 elections, which he lost. Hughes, however, said his bill was not part of a national effort to limit voting rights and noted that he had filed a similar bill two years ago.

“I’m not the one trying to make this a national debate,” Hughes said. “I’m talking about Texas.”

While Texas election officials say the 2020 elections in the state were “smooth and secure,” Republicans in the statehouse have prioritized the issue and are pushing bills in both legislative chambers. Gov. Greg Abbott has made “election integrity” an emergency item this session.

Texas Democrats denounced the legislation as a “stain on the state of Texas.”

“Senate Bill 7 is the worst voter suppression we’ve seen since Jim Crow — a full-on assault on the voting rights of Texans with disabilities and Black and Latino voters,” Gilberto Hinojosa, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party said. “Republicans have two priorities right now: attacking Texans’ rights and silencing Texans’ voices.”

Senate Bill 7 takes aim at several of the tactics the Texas Democratic Party and its election officials in some of the state’s major cities tried to use to improve voter turnout during a record-setting 2020 election. Major counties like Dallas and Harris broke their voter turnout records.

Harris County opened up drive-through voting and set up 24-hour polling places to allow residents to vote at more flexible and convenient hours.

It also tried mailing applications for mail ballots to all 2.4 million of its registered voters and setting up multiple mail ballot drop-off sites at its county clerk satellite locations. Both of those efforts were stopped by Texas Republicans.

Hughes’ bill addresses all of these issues.

It restricts early voting hours to between 6 a.m. to 9 p.m, barring any 24-hour polling effort. It prevents drive-through voting lanes by amending the election code to require voting to happen inside a building and preventing it from happening in tents or temporary structures. Texans would not be allowed to vote from inside their car unless the voter was unable to enter a polling place because it was a risk to their health.

Hughes said the Legislature had never allowed for drive-through voting and therefore never contemplated the security it would require. Both drive-through voting and 24-hour polling locations made it hard for poll watchers, which work for political parties and candidates, to monitor voting activity.

The bill also bans local election officials from “soliciting” mail ballot application from voters. Hughes said Harris County’s efforts in November tried to usurp the authority of the Legislature by making up new rules for voting.

“The election officials there were preparing to send applications for ballot by mail to millions of voters who had not requested, who were not eligible to vote by mail,” he said. “I don’t think any of us want county officials making up their own rules, when the people of Texas have spoken through the Legislature.”

Voting rights advocates fear that the ban on “soliciting” mail ballot applications could prevent local officials from educating the public about how to vote by mail for fear of running afoul of the law.

“It’s absurd on its face to have a law that keeps civil servants charged with doing something [voting] from talking about doing something,” said Mimi Marziani, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project.

Hughes, however, said the bill did not cover that. An elections official would still be allowed to post information on its website about how to vote by mail.

Marziani said many of the bill’s provisions would disproportionately affect voters of color. The extended voting hours in Harris County, for example, were mostly used by voters of color. Fifty-six percent of voters who cast ballots in late night hours were Black, Hispanic or Asian, according to the Texas Civil Rights Project.

Voting rights advocates also worried that the bill gave poll watchers the ability to record events at polling locations and made it more difficult for election judges to remove them. Black voters and other voters of color are more likely to be victims of poll watcher intimidation, according to the Texas Civil Rights Project.

Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, also said that the restrictions on keeping the number of voting machines equal at all countywide polling places, would mostly target large urban counties with large populations of minority voters.

“Isn’t it ironic that this formula, just by happenstance, once again, just applies to urban counties that are Democratic?” he said.

The bill also creates civil penalties for election officials who violate its provisions. Those penalties could include the loss of employment and employment benefits.

Voting rights advocates had also criticized a provision in the bill that would have created more steps for people with disabilities to vote by mail.

Currently, people with disabilities check a box on their application to vote by mail designating that they are qualified to do so because of their disability. The bill originally added a provision requiring these voters to provide proof of their disability from the Social Security Administration, the Department of Veteran Affairs, or a physician.

But Hughes said Wednesday night that he planned to remove that provision from the bill after input he received from people with disabilities after committee hearings last week. Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, planned to introduce an amendment to the bill that would remove that provision.

The Texas Democratic Party had tried to expand mail voting during the pandemic by suing the state and arguing that a lack of immunity to COVID-19 was a physical condition that threatened the health of voters. Texas only allows mail ballots for people who are over 65, disabled, will be away from their home county during the election or are confined in jail.

The Texas Supreme Court, which is comprised entirely of Republicans, rejected that argument saying that a lack of immunity to COVID-19 alone did not constitute a physical disability that allowed all Texans to vote by mail.