Texas Public Policy Foundation calls state House approval of election changes 'good first step'

Election legislation approved by the Texas House late last week contained many of the changes sought by critics of what they view as loose voting procedures rushed into place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, they argue, the measures are still missing some critical provisions needed to re-instill public confidence in the voting process.

“It’s a good first step,” Chad Ennis, senior fellow, Election Protection Project for the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), told the Houston Daily. “We are hopeful additional measures will by added to the legislation before going to the governor [Greg Abbott].”

The House inserted its election reform provisions in House Bill 6 into Senate Bill 7, the reform measure the Senate sent to the House in early April. The bill is almost certain to end up in a House-Senate conference committee to iron out differences between the two versions.

Ennis said the foundation would like to see language added to the final version of the bill that bans local elections officials from taking private money to underwrite the costs of administering elections. Georgia, Arizona and Florida recently enacted laws that banned private money in light of reports that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg funneled nearly $400 million through the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), a group run by former Democratic operatives, to local elections officials in battleground states. Zuckerberg group's stated mission was to help secure safe elections during the pandemic. Critics charged that CTCL’s efforts amounted to little more than a get out the vote campaign for Democrats.

The TPPF also wants local election officials to be held more accountable for maintaining the voting rolls, and would like to see a requirement that those requesting mail-in ballots provide a driver license number on the application.

“The problem of election fraud is mainly the domain of mail-in voting, where a lack of identification safeguards and inconsistent voter list maintenance can be exploited to produce illegal ballots,” according to a March research paper by TPPF.

A recent poll shows that voters agree. WPA Intelligence found that 81% of Texans say "voting in person and by mail should have the same voter identification requirements."

The same polling sample found that 60% of Texans "believe vote-by-mail should be available only to citizens who are elderly, disabled, away from their primary residence for work, or serving in the military." Only 27% think that vote-by-mail should be available to anyone.

The House-approved bill does include checks on partisan poll watchers. It, for instance, makes it clear watchers can "observe without obstructing."

The bill also bans early voting clerks from sending unsolicited mail ballot requests to voters.

Texas law currently requires voters to show a valid government-issued ID to vote in person, but only a signature and no identification to vote by mail.