Weeks after Texas lawmakers reduce illegal voting penalty, Gov. Greg Abbott asks them to increase it

AUSTIN — After outcries from tea party activists in his party, Gov. Greg Abbott has added a new subject to the agenda of the year’s third special legislative season: increasing penalties for illegal voting back to where they were before he signed an “election integrity” bill earlier this month.

Although “Texas has made tremendous progress in upholding the integrity of our elections,” the Legislature needs to return the punishments for illegal voting to a minimum of two years in prison, and possibly 20, Abbott said in a message to the Senate late Wednesday.

In the new law, slated to kick in on Dec. 2, maximum confinement will be one year in jail.

“By increasing penalties for illegal voting, we will send an even clearer message that voter fraud will not be tolerated in Texas,” Abbott said as he added his eighth topic to the “call” of the overtime gathering.

Lawmakers are mostly preoccupied with redistricting. On Monday the session, which can last no more than 30 days, will reach the halfway point.

Late Wednesday, House Speaker Dade Phelan pushed back on Abbott’s suggestion for the election law tweak.

The change was one of the House’s “thoughtful amendments” and “now is not the time to re-litigate,” Phelan tweeted. “The House will remain focused” on redistricting, he said.

Senate Bill 1, which Abbott signed on Sept. 7, created a new criminal penalty for vote harvesting, or coercing people to vote a certain way in exchange for benefits. Election officials who send out unsolicited vote-by-mail applications, even to voters who qualify, could be charged with a felony and face up to two years in jail.

In a simultaneous reduction though, the offense of illegal voting was lowered from a second-degree felony to a Class A misdemeanor. The House floor amendment by San Antonio GOP Rep. Steve Allison was approved 80-35.

At the time, Phelan, R-Beaumont, lauded the move, according to the Houston Chronicle. Chuck DeVore of the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation didn’t raise objections, the Chronicle reported.

The offense of illegal voting covers impersonating another voter, voting more than once and marking someone’s ballot against their wishes. Most of the debate, though, centered on a fourth type, which is voting in an election in which someone’s not eligible to vote. High-profile prosecutions of felons on supervised release or probation, when their attempt to vote could have been an innocent mistake, was cited by proponents of the change.

Early last week, though, JoAnn Fleming of Tyler, a leader of Grassroots America — We The People, a tea party-style group, castigated lawmakers for the penalty reduction.

“Who in their right mind would agree to reducing the criminal penalties for voter fraud anywhere,” she told Texas Scorecard, a publication of the staunchly conservative group Empower Texans.

Earlier Wednesday, before Abbott acted, Fran Rhodes, president of the True Texas Project, a statewide conservative group that emerged from the Northeast Tarrant Tea Party, said in an email blast that she doesn’t trust Abbott to pursue election audits.

Of the Allison amendment, Rhodes wrote, “How does that even make any sense?”

Late Wednesday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick tweeted that he, Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton discovered the House’s “last minute” amendment, which he said “flew under the radar” until the three GOP statewide elected officials “found it & agreed then it must be corrected. The Senate will pass next week.”