Senate Bill Would Allow Re-do Of Elections With Ballot Paper Shortages

[#TexasPolitics365]

Texas Senate has passed a proposal allowing the state to re-run elections in Harris County, home to the state’s most populous city, Houston.

The legislation was the result of Harris County officials running out of ballot paper at several voting sites in the deeply problematic 2022 election. 

The measure would give the Texas secretary of state the authority to hold a new election in the county if it runs out of paper at 2% or more of its polling sites for more than an hour.

The bill’s Republican co-author, State Sen. Mayes Middleton, said, “There is no excuse why we can’t competently run our elections and have adequate ballot paper.” 

(Full story HERE.)
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Texas Republicans Introduce Election Bills In House

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Less than two years after Texas Democrats  dramatically fled to Washington,DC in a failed attempt to shut down the House and prevent Republican bills relating to election integrity from reaching a vote, the Legislature is poised to once again revisit how Texas runs elections.

Entering the 2023 legislative session in January, more than 75 bills related to elections or voting had already been prefiled. Both major political parties have drafted bills. Democrats aim to expand voting access. Republicans are focused on enhancing election security.

(Full story HERE.)
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Texas Republicans To File Election Legislation

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Texas Republicans are prefiling bills aimed at creating an election police force similar to a unit deployed in Florida during the 2022 midterm elections.

The push for increased law enforcement involvement in Texas elections comes as GOP lawmakers are casting doubt on the outcome of Harris County's election results and District Attorney Kim Ogg probes for alleged criminal activity following issues with paper ballot availability and adjusted polling hours. Harris County leaders have defended the election's integrity.

(Full story HERE.)
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State's High Court Allows Harris County Extended Vote Count

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The Texas Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Harris County election officials can include over 2,000 votes cast during an extended voting period on Election Day in certified results, but must give the number of late-cast votes in each individual race.

In their two-page order, the nine Republican justices on the state's highest civil appeals court rejected the request from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to outright nullify the votes cast after polls traditionally close. However, the court did not dismiss Paxton's petition to have late-cast votes thrown out in future elections.

(Full story HERE.)
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Texas Democrats Want Federal Monitors During Election

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With Democrats panicking just days before what is expected to be a Republican tsunami at the polls, they’re pulling out every device in their bag of tricks to stave it off.

In Texas, this effort may take the form of direct intervention in the election by the now hyper-weaponized Biden Justice Department in Harris County, America’s third-largest county, which is home to Houston, America’s fourth-largest city. There, the Justice Department has been asked by the local Democratic machine to intervene in the November election by sending federal monitors. 

(Full story HERE.)
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Democrat Garza Vows To Disband "Wasteful" Election Integrity Unit Created By Paxton

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Rochelle Garza, did Democrat candidate for attorney general has vowed to disband and replace Ken Paxton's election integrity unit, which she calls "wasteful." 

Paxton, like other Republicans in the state, assert that it is important to pursue election fraud, while Democrats discount it, saying that election fraud is rare in Texas, and portray Republicans as using the issue to push legislation that makes it harder for minorities to vote.

In a tweet posted yesterday, Garza said:

"As your Attorney General, I will replace Ken Paxton's wasteful "election integrity unit" and I will make sure voting rights are protected so that EVERYONE'S vote counts."

In launching the election integrity unit just before last year's local elections, Paxton called it a "concentrated effort to devote agency lawyers, investigators, support staff, and resources to ensuring this local election season is run transparently and securely."

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Voter Fraud Allegations In Texas Most Sparsely Populated County

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Eleven people are registered to vote at one address in Loving County. One of them is Loving County Commissioner Ysidro Renteria, who has been in office since 2011 and listed this property in December as his permanent address on his application to run for re-election, signed under oath. He and at least three relatives used the address to vote in the March primaries.

The secret? "No one lives there,” says Loving County Sheriff Chris Busse, who's also the voter registrar for the county, which is the least populated county in the United States, with an estimated 54 residents, despite voter rolls that show 97 voters are registered in the oil-rich county.

[FULL STORY HERE]

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GOP Convention Rejects 2020 Election Results

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The Texas Republican Party voted over the weekend to pass a resolution saying President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory was illegitimate and called on fellow Republicans "to ensure election integrity" during the midterm races in November.

"We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election," a statement released on Monday by the Texas GOP said, calling Biden an "acting President" who was "not legitimately elected by the people of the United States."

(Full story HERE.)
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Harris County Elections Administrator Resigns Following Primary Mishaps

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More than a week after a series of issues and mounting complaints about the 2022 primary elections, Harris County Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria verbally submitted her resignation Tuesday to commissioners.

Longoria addressed commissioners by phone during their regular meeting and said she intends to step down on July 1.

Longoria became the county's first  elections administrator in November, 2020.

(Full story HERE.)
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Civil Rights Groups Sue State For Documents Related To Voting Roll Purges

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Five voting rights groups have filed a lawsuit in a U.S. district court asking for Texas’ Secretary of State to release documents about a state program they claim “threatens to remove naturalized citizens from the voter rolls.”

In August, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office said Secretary John Scott had started a search to identify non-citizens on voter rolls and soon “found thousands of registrants for potential removal under this program,” the groups said in a joint press release Tuesday.

(Full story HERE.)
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AG Paxton Appeals Court Ruling Saying AG Can't Prosecute Election Violations

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) has appealed a recent court decision prohibiting his office from prosecuting election cases.

"The Texas Attorney General has had the authority to prosecute certain election law violations for 70 years," the motion filed Sunday said. 

"The Court's decision misinterprets constitutional text, breaks with Supreme Court precedent, [and] is inconsistent with its own precedent..."

(Full story HERE
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Potter County GOP Will Use Paper Ballots, Hand-Counting

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Voters in Potter County will see changes at the polls during the March 1st primary. The Potter County Republican Party will administer their own election using all paper, hand-marked, hand-counted ballots.

This will be the first time since the early 2000s that Republican voters in the north Texas county will be using strictly paper ballots on election day. A choice Potter County GOP Chairman Dan Rogers said will lead to a more secure count.

(Full story here.)
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County Commission Candidate Indicted For Misleading Campaign Texts

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A grand jury in Collin County indicted a Plano man on suspicion of a misdemeanor violation of state election law, a spokesman from the Plano Police Department confirmed to the Plano Star Courier.

The indictment came as Plano police investigated a series of clandestine text messages purported to be from Plano City Council candidates. 

Candidates named in the texts, including 2021 mayoral candidate Lily Bao, denied any involvement with the texts and contend that they were from an external source.

One of the text messages read, “Make Plano Great Again. Vote For Donald Trump Co-Chair Lily Bao for Mayor.”

Authorities connected the text messages to Plano resident John Stafford, who's served as the fundraising director for the Collin County Democratic Party and is running for Collin County Commissioner.

(Full story here.)
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New Sec. Of State Says 2020 Election "Not Stolen" But Wants Audit To Go Forward

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Texas’ new secretary of state says he wants to restore confidence in the state’s elections, but says the 2020 presidential election was not stolen.

In an interview Thursday, John Scott said there’s no question that Joe Biden is the president and that he has “not seen anything” to suggest the election was stolen.

But Scott stopped short of agreeing with a deputy under his predecessor who said the 2020 election in Texas “smooth and secure.” He did not want to get ahead of an election audit of four of Texas' largest counties, which he called his top priority.

(Full story here.)
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Abbott Announces Election Audit Of Four Counties After Trump Request

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Former Pres. Trump is pressuring Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to back a bill to launch an election audit in the Lone Star State, signaling an expanded effort to throw his broader 2020 election defeat into question

The Texas secretary of state's office announced Thursday afternoon it would carry out an election audit in four of the state's largest counties.

While Trump won Texas handily in November, as did Republicans up and down the ballot, he issued an open letter to Abbott Thursday repeating his claims of mass voter fraud and other irregularities "in some" counties in the state and urged the governor to back the election audit bill in the Texas Legislature's upcoming special session.

The legislature passed sweeping legislation to reform elections in a previous session this year, ending special, one time election procedures such as drive-thru voting in 24-hour voting and lengthened hours of voting in some counties. Democrats portrayed this as restricting access to voting and voter suppression, but these selection procedures were unusual and in place only for the 2020 election.

(Full story here.)
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Gov. Abbott Signs Election Integrity Bill Into Law

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Tuesday signed a sweeping overhaul of his state's election procedures after months of delay caused by Democrats who sought to block the bill they say will disenfranchise voters. 

Abbott made the measure his top priority in two special legislative sessions he called over the summer, the first of which ground to a halt when state House Democrats denied majority Republicans a quorum by fleeing to Washington, D.C.

The legislature approved the bill last week and Abbott signed the measure in Tyler, accompanied by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) and Sen. Bryan Hughes (R), the lead Senate sponsor of the measure.

"Election integrity is now law in the state of Texas," Abbott said.

The measure bars round-the-clock polling stations and places new restrictions on drive-thru voting and voting by mail. It will give more authority to partisan poll watchers who can observe an election, and it increases the requirements for identification voters must show when they cast a ballot.

(Full story here.)
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#Texas House, Senate Pass Election Reform Bill

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The Texas House and Senate have passed a sweeping election law after months of Democratic opposition that included a nearly six-week quorum break.

The House passed the bill 80-41 about a week after the Democrats ended their 38-day walkout. Lawmakers debated the controversial bill for more than 12 hours Thursday before giving it final passage Friday.

The Texas Senate acted Tuesday to pass the bill in a party-line vote, 18-4.

(Full story here.)
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Houston Man Charged With Illegal Voting

Hervis Rogers went viral on social media for being the last person in line at Texas Southern University to cast a vote at 1 a.m. on Super Tuesday in March 2020. He was applauded as a tenacious, civic-minded man who worked hard to exercise his right to vote.

Now, Rogers, a convicted felon, is being prosecuted by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office for allegedly voting illegally.

(Full story here.)

Poll Shows #Texans Oppose Democrats Fleeing To Avoid voting

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By a two to one margin, Texans oppose state legislators using procedural maneuvers to prevent voting. More than half of Texans (54%) said they do not support members staging walkouts that would deny the Legislature the quorum it needs in order to hold votes. Just 27% of Texans say they support the moves, in a poll conducted by WPA Intelligence.

(Full story here.)
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Gov. Abbott Says "Un-Texan" Fleeing Democrat Legislators Will Be Arrested Upon Return

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott described state Democrats who fled to Washington DC to prevent a vote as 'quitters' who were 'un-Texan' in running from a fight, and said they will be arrested on their return.

At least 58 Democrats left Austin to avoid the vote on election bills, touching down in Washington D.C. on Monday evening in two private jets - chartered at a cost of $100,000. 

Democrats in Texas and throughout the country sought to portray the Republican election bill as voter suppression," and "Jim Crow 2.0,"while Republicans made the argument that the law simply curtails radical innovations that Harris county and others sought to introduce into elections last year that lessens the integrity of election results.

(Full story here.)
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