Governor Greg Abbott held a press conference on March 15 on election integrity legislation this session. Gov. Abbott was joined for the press conference by Senator Paul Bettencourt and Representative Briscoe Cain, who have both filed several pieces of legislation to enhance election integrity in Texas. Please see here for Gov. Abbott’s press release on the press conference. The HillCo report below summarizes remarks by Gov. Abbott, Sen. Bettencourt, and Rep. Briscoe Cain.
This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics taken up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the discussions but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.
Governor Greg Abbott
- Must have trust & confidence in elections, courts agree; one way to do this is to reduce potential for voter fraud
- Not partisan, President Obama engaged in prosecuting voting fraud in Texas
- Election fraud is unacceptable, made it an emergency item this session; pursuing election fraud is a constitutional obligation
- Objective is to ensure that every eligible voter gets to vote, only eligible votes get counted
- Integrity was questioned in Harris County with mail-in ballots, elections clerk sent millions of ballots to those who wouldn’t have been eligible to vote by mail; TX Supreme Court was right to put a stop to this
- Houston had drive-through voting for any voter, not authorized by law; TX allows curbside voting for certain voters
- Must pass laws to prevent election officials from harming integrity of the process
- Poll watchers are critical to election integrity, saw poll watchers denied ability to do their jobs this last session; must pass lass to ensure they are not blocked
Sen. Paul Bettencourt
- Did not need to have 2 million absentee ballots sent out, was decided by TX Supreme Court, would’ve cause chaos and gotten voters to think this was standard precedent
- Didn’t need absentee ballots to drive voter turnout higher
- Filed integrity bills, incl. absentee ballot reform, no private PO Boxes as addresses, uniform election laws for 7am-7pm across the state
- Also need to prep the judiciary for election contests
- 7am-7pm hours are stable, those with shifts can work around this, no denial of voter rights with this provision
Rep. Briscoe Cain
- HB 6 is part of the larger House effort for election integrity, incl. standardized & uniform elections
- Owe it to people in the community to correct this, ineligible voters casting ballots is the only form of voter suppression
Questions
- SB 1114 seems to be a repeat of the voter purge issue from 2 years ago, no window of time
- Bettencourt – Need to scrub all of this data, allows SoS to do cross-checks, but how it’s done is down to oversight and rulemaking
- Allows checking to occur
- Weren’t these same rules in place in 2019?
- Bettencourt – No, rules and bill were not in place, trying to provide structure; keeping voter roll clean is first part of election integrity
- Asks after voter fraud and election results
- Abbott – Election fraud takes place, have no doubt it occurred in Texas
- We wait for allegations to made, then it is referred to state authority; have found some local elections in the past that were altered by voter fraud
- Not sure how many or if any occurred in 2020, any voter fraud undermines election process; obligated to remove this distrust
- How can we ensure accuracy of voting machines and allowance for poll watchers
- Cain – There are bills on this exact thing, legislation in both chambers to protect this
- Polling numbers are clear that Republicans and Democrats want to see election reforms
- Bettencourt – Important part of bill is verifiable paper trail, also have SB 1591 relating to poll watchers
- Asks after polling needs of urban counties and rural counties
- Cain – There are concerns with rural counties, many have distance access problems not shared by urban counties
- Abbott – Harris is more dense and populous than rural counties, but there are far more voting locations
- Want to make sure everyone has opportunity to vote, this is why we have early voting
- Bettencourt – Uniformity, transparency, consistency; voters should have same access wherever they are
- About letter to Lt. Gov. Patrick on ERCOT; you said PUC cannot retroactively change billing, but are you opposed?
- Abbott – There is a Constitutional provision prohibiting retroactive actions, taking of property, etc.
- Need hearings to determine if there is a taking, an impairment of a contract; legislature is the right body to investigate and weed through complexities, ensure constitutional issues are navigated