USA TODAY International Edition

Opposing view: We expanded access and protected integrity

- Greg Abbott Greg Abbott is governor of Texas.

To accommodat­e election challenges posed by COVID- 19, Texas has made voting easier than ever before.

Texans can vote in one of three ways: On Election Day, before Election Day during the early voting period, or by mail for eligible voters.

Election Day voting has been expanded by having more voting locations than ever and by allowing those locations to operate longer hours.

In- person early voting is expanded by an additional week to make it easier for Texans to vote in person in less crowded settings.

Texans eligible to vote by mail typically submit their vote by mail. Texas law also allows mail- in ballots to be hand- delivered, in person, only on Election Day.

To give Texans who want to submit their mail- in ballot in person more flexibility, the time to do so was extended from just one day to 40 days.

And as we make it easier for Texans to vote, we also have an obligation to preserve the integrity of elections.

That’s why Texas requires hand- delivered mail- in ballots to be cast at a single, designated location in each county, while also allowing poll watchers to monitor these locations.

Some misconstru­e the single location for mail- in ballots to also limit all early voting to a single location. Far from it, there are more early voting locations than ever before. And, obviously, every mailbox in town is a location where a mail- in ballot can be placed.

Combined, these actions expand absentee voting in Texas while also protecting against voter fraud.

A federal court of appeals agrees, stating that the Texas mail- in ballot decision is “an expansion of absentee voting in Texas, not a restrictio­n of it” and that “one strains to see how it burdens voting at all.”

Any suggestion that Texas has restricted voting is simply baseless. The facts tell a different story. In Texas, we expanded voter access while protecting election integrity and mitigating the spread of COVID- 19.

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