Texas Senate to vote on five election integrity bills

The Texas Senate is expected to vote on five election integrity bills that advanced out of the Senate Committee on State Affairs that would increase or add penalties for a wide number of voting irregularities.

Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, filed all five bills with the exception of one he co-sponsored with the committee’s chair, Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Tyler.

SB 1039, filed by Bettencourt and Hughes, relates to processes to address election irregularities and would provide a civil penalty. It would amend state election code to create a process to take action against an election officer who appears to violate state election law and contributes to election irregularities in a precinct or at polling places, among other issues.

They filed the bill to implement “common-sense election audit procedures to identify and correct election irregularities like the thousands that were identified after the November 2022 election in Harris County,” Bettencourt said.

Bettencourt filed the election integrity bills to specifically respond to widespread failures with Harris County’s election processes in the 2020 and 2022 elections. The county is still embroiled in lawsuits over multiple election irregularities that occurred on Election Day, Nov. 8, 2022.

Bettencourt filed SB 1911 to amend state election code to increase the criminal penalty for certain offenses related to elections. During a hearing on the bill, Harris County Election Judge Kelley Flannery tearfully testified that she was spit on by a voter who was turned away because there were no paper ballots at that particular polling location. At some polling locations, there weren’t keys to provide access to buildings, paper ballots, or the electronic voting machines didn’t work, among other failures that fell under Harris County Election Administrator Clifford Tatum’s responsibility. At one point, KHOU 11 News reported that over 120 election polls in Harris County didn’t have enough paper ballots on Election Day, and countless voters were turned away from their polling locations.

The bill would increase the penalty for the intentional failure to deliver election supplies from a Class C to a Class A misdemeanor, increase the penalty for obstructing the distribution of election supplies for an election from a Class C misdemeanor to a state jailable felony, and increase the penalty for revealing election results early from a Class A misdemeanor to a state jailable felony.

“The four other election integrity bills increase criminal penalties for obvious problems that occurred during the botched elections in Harris County, from the Election Administrator refusing to supply paper ballots to polls and ordering the Signature Verification Committee to NOT verify signatures on mail-in ballots,” Bettencourt said.

He also filed SB 1950 to revise the signature verification process for early voting and mail-in ballots and create a criminal offense for violations of the law. The bill would amend state election code to create a Class A misdemeanor for a county clerk, elections administrator, or early voting clerk who doesn’t verify signatures on mail-in ballots. Signature verification of mail ballots didn’t occur in the Harris County November 2022 election, Bettencourt said, because Tatum “instructed the Signature Verification Committee that they were not to verify the identification on the application to the voter records, because [Tatum’s] staff had already done that comparison.”

“Harris County has experienced numerous elections where the election records from the polling location were not accounted for until the day following the election day or perhaps even later,” Bettencourt said. These and other issues, like the previous election administration losing at least 10,000 ballots during the 2022 primary election, resulted in the Harris County Republican Party and others filing lawsuits. Judges last November were forced to extend polling hours and oversee a process of ballot counting delays.

Bettencourt also filed SB 1907, which relates to preparing and delivering precinct election returns, which also would increase a criminal penalty. If precinct election records aren’t delivered by the deadline prescribed by law, the bill would allow for the secretary of state to supervise the activities necessary to complete the count and prepare the precinct returns and distribute records. It also includes provisions to allow for a district judge to order precinct election records to be impounded.

The fifth election reform bill he filed, SB 1938, would amend state election code to impose penalties in response to a voter registrar that doesn’t comply with voter registration laws. It would allow the secretary of state to withhold funds if a voter registrar “fails to timely perform a duty regarding the approval, change, or cancellation of a voter’s registration.”

All five are expected to pass the full Senate and be sent to the House.