A Texas Republican-backed voting reform bill could be reworked in a series of private deliberations after the legislation cleared the state House on Friday.
Senate Bill 7 prohibits the “solicitation of ballot by mail applications,” requires disabled voters to affirm they are “physically unable to enter a polling a place” if they seek alternative means of casting their ballot, and disallows those in political subdivisions from using public funds to distribute early voting forms to people who did not request them.
The House voted 81-64 to pass the legislation, though it has seen resistance from Democrats who have proposed about 130 amendments to the bill as of Thursday, according to the Texas Tribune. The proposal might be destined to be amended behind closed doors after left-leaning politicians threatened to stall the legislation.
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The bill will need to once again be approved by the House before it can be sent to the Senate, where the most recent vote Saturday was 18-13.
Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott, say the bill bolsters election integrity while making it harder for those with ill intentions to cheat. Those on the opposite side of the aisle maintain it’s restrictive and discriminatory to minorities and disabled individuals.
“Our objective in Texas is to ensure that every eligible voter gets to vote and that only eligible ballots are counted,” Abbott said in a March 15 statement. “In the 2020 election, we witnessed actions throughout our state that could risk the integrity of our elections and enable voter fraud, which is why I made election integrity an emergency item this session. Thank you to Senator Bettencourt and Representative Cain for their leadership on this important issue and drafting legislation to protect free and fair elections in the state of Texas.”
The version of the legislation that cleared the Senate would have banned extended voting hours and ended the practice of casting a ballot in a drive-thru.
Democrats have since been able to tack on several amendments that align with their priorities, including one that requires judges to inform people that they are convicted of offenses that disqualify them from voting following the arrest of Crystal Mason, who is facing a five-year prison sentence for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election, the Texas Tribune reported.
“Under cover of darkness, the Texas House just passed one of the worst anti-voting bills in the country. SB 7 will target voters of color, voters with disabilities, and the civil servants who run our elections. Lawmakers advanced the bill with little debate or public input,” said Sarah Labowitz, policy and advocacy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. “They know the bill is designed to suppress the vote by making voting harder and allowing poll watchers to intimidate voters. Texans deserve better than to wake up and find out that lawmakers jammed through a law that will make participating in our democracy harder and scarier.”
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Texas’s voting changes are part of a nationwide trend where Democrats and Republicans are racing to make amendments to state voting practices following the 2020 presidential election that saw unprecedented amounts of nontraditional voting by mail and early ballots.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a GOP-backed election bill Thursday that prevents state agencies from sending voting-by-mail ballots to people who didn’t request one, disallows ballot harvesting, and puts restrictions on the hours of operations for drop boxes.
