» Voting bill full of new restrictions.
Hours after midnight Thursday morning, the Republican-dominated Texas Senate approved a bill that will restrict voting access in the name of preventing fraud.
“This bill is about making it easy to vote and hard to cheat,” the bill’s author, state Sen. Bryan Hughes, RMineola, said in a video to supporters about 2 a.m. “We had a long debate. Scores of amendments were offered, and at the end of the day, Texas passed a strong election integrity bill that we can be proud of.”
Yet Democrats repeatedly warned throughout the debate of disproportionate effects that Senate Bill 7 would have on minority voters in a state that already has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country. They also characterized the bill as part of a national GOP effort to clamp down on voting after the party lost the White House and the Senate last year, even in the absence of evidence to substantiate claims of widespread voter fraud.
“As I see this bill, it’s a pure case of suppression. There are some things in here that are really offensive,” said Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston. “This hurts to the core.”
Despite those objections, the bill passed on a party-line vote, with all 18 Republicans in favor and all 13 Democrats opposed.
Just two parts of the bill received bipartisan support — a requirement, plus funding, for counties to use voting machines that produce a paper trail and another for the secretary of state to develop an electronic mail ballot tracking system for counties.
The House has a similar voting bill, House Bill 6, that would raise penalties for election fraud violations and impeding a poll watcher.
The House Elections Committee began to hear testimony on the measure early Thursday and continued to question witnesses well into the evening, with legislators and testifiers repeating many of the arguments discussed in the Senate.
Hughes denied that the Senate bill was part of a national push by GOP-led states, bringing attention to a similar bill he authored last session, SB 9, that included some of the same provisions.
“Texas has been working on this for some time, years and years,” Hughes said. “This is not part of some national discussion.”
Here’s a rundown of the major provisions of the bill:
1. Allows partisan poll watchers to video record voters
The bill would allow partisan poll watchers who “reasonably believe” they are witnessing election laws being broken to record video or audio at the polls and submit it to the secretary of state for review. The videos would not be allowed to be released publicly.
Poll watchers — volunteers assigned by candidates and political parties — also must be allowed to be “near enough to see and hear” election officers and cannot be “denied free movement.”
Democrats raised concerns that the provision would result in voter intimidation — especially of people of color — by poll watchers.
Toni Pippins-Poole, Dallas county’s election director, reported in 2018 that poll watchers who insulted voters and interrogated them while they stood in line created a level of harassment that was unlike anything she’d seen in her 30-year career.
2. Puts new restrictions on polling place locations in large counties
Under the bill, large counties would have to set polling places and the number of voting machines based on the number of eligible voters in a given state House district.
“Isn’t it ironic that this formula, just by happenstance, once again, just applies to urban counties that are Democratic?” said Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas.
Sen. Carol Alvarado, DHouston, said the provision would cause a “very stunning discrepancy” in the 14 House districts that would lose polling locations — of those, 12 are in districts represented by House members who are Black, Latino or of Asian descent.
“The intent of this is to prevent either party to use partisan advantage to place polling places in a way that favors their party over the other party,” Hughes said. “The idea is to equalize based on eligible voters, not voter turnout, but eligible voters. We cannot imagine a more objective criteria to use.”
3. Bans overnight and drive-thru voting
These expansions were pioneered by Harris County election officials in the 2020 election. SB 7 would limit early voting hours to 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. and prohibit drive-thru voting by clarifying that polling places cannot be “in a tent or other temporary movable structure or in a facility primarily designed for motor vehicles.”
Hughes has said the purpose of the ban is to ensure that poll watchers are available.
Alvarado questioned the motivation for these provisions after citing estimates from Harris County’s election office that Black and Latino voters cast more than half of drive-thru and extended-hour votes.
“There’s nothing in this bill that has to do with targeting specific groups,” Hughes said. “The rules apply across the board.”
4. Prohibits massmailing of absentee ballot applications
Another novel 2020 voting expansion by Harris County election officials targeted in the bill was the attempt to send millions of registered voters applications to vote by mail, an effort to make voters aware of more convenient voting options during the pandemic. Republicans sued over the plan, saying it might confuse noneligible mail voters, and the Texas Supreme Court sided with the party, forcing the county to toss reams upon reams of the paperwork.
A provision that would have required voters with a disability — one of the few groups allowed to vote by mail in Texas — to provide backup documentation, such as a doctor’s note or Social Security Administration paperwork, was removed in an amendment Thursday.
5. Requires paperwork for drivers of curbside voters
The bill would require nonrelatives who drive three or more curbside voters to the polls at the same time to fill out a form given to them by the early voting clerk that would be sent to the secretary of state. Texas law allows curbside voting only for voters who physically cannot enter the polling place without help or the likelihood of injuring themselves.
The form for drivers would be made available for the attorney general “only if there’s an investigation after there’s a complaint from a voter,” Hughes said.
Sen. John Whitmire, DHouston, said the provision “really doesn’t have a lot to do with securing the polls other than maybe in some instance someone gave someone a ride to the poll if they’ll vote the way they ask them.”
Hughes said it was added upon the recommendation of Starr County officials in the Rio Grande Valley who had experienced problems with curbside assistants.