Analysis: Voter “Integrity” Legislation Texas 87th Legislature Special Session

Texas Governor Greg Abbott called a special legislative session to begin on July 8, 2021 to address a myriad of topics aligned with conservative ideologies, such as bail reform, funding of law enforcement agencies, border security, social media censorship, Article X funding, youth sports, abortion-inducing drugs, and Critical Race Theory; tempered with real issues facing Texans like family violence prevention, and a thirteenth check for retired teachers. The focus of the session, however, will likely be to pass what is still being proffered as election integrity legislation. During the 87th regular session, House Democrats broke quorum on the last day to pass bills to stop the passage of Senate Bill 7 (SB 7). The special session [87(1)] versions of these bills are not improvements over the 87th regular session versions. 87(1) Senate Bill 1 (SB1) and House Bill 3 (HB3) have the same stated intentions to “reduce the likelihood of fraud” in Texas elections. The following analysis finds that the 87(1) bills continue to fail to meet this intention by perpetuating accusations of fraud not supported by evidence, increasing restrictions on voting access, and incentivizing the fabrication of allegations in future elections. And these new versions continue to threaten to limit democratic participation, advance proposals that restrict access to mail-in ballots and limit voting hours at polling locations. SB1 and HB3 continue to suffer the same flaws as their predecessors and therefore fail to restore faith in the US election system, and likely exacerbate current distrust.