Name: Texas Republicans file bills to block counties from sending mail-ballot applications
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Texas Republicans file bills to block counties from sending mail-ballot applications

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This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateRepublican state lawmakers have filed bills to codify the Texas Supreme Court decision that blocked Harris County from sending mail ballot applications to all of its 2.4 million registered voters.Senate Bill 208, authored by Sens. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston; Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe; Brian Birdwell; Bob Hall and Kel Seliger, would stop election officials from sending absentee ballot applications, regardless of eligibility. State Rep. Valoree Swanson, a Republican from Houston, filed a companion bill, House Bill 25.“We must recognize the obvious that we didn’t need to mail 2M+ absentee ballot applications to registered voters in Harris County to have a record 11.2 million Texas voters cast their ballots in November,” Bettencourt said in a statement. “It is important to note that the 66.2% turnout in 2020 was without wasting taxpayer money by doing shotgun mailings to everyone on the voter roll.”More Politics NewsHarris County Clerk Christopher Hollins’ plan to do so, an attempt to make voting easier during the pandemic, was thwarted after the county’s Republican Party sued. The Texas Supreme Court ruled in early October that Hollins would be exceeding his authority, though two lower courts had previously approved of the mass mailings.Hollins had already sent out nearly 400,000 applications to Harris County voters who were 65 and older by the time the suit arose. The proposed legislation filed this month would extend to even such mailings to eligible voters because they would prevent counties from sending any unsolicited mail ballot applications.BACKGROUND:Texas is that requires an excuse for voting by mail, and during the 2020 election, it was that did not accept fear of contracting COVID-19 as a reason to do so. Under the law, Texas mail voters must be either 65 and older, disabled, out of the county or incarcerated during the voting period to cast a mail ballot.Harris County election officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the proposed legislation. Hollins had previously characterized the pushback as voter suppression.“It is disappointing that the court has sided with political forces seeking to limit voter access this November,” Hollins said in a statement in October. “Placing limitations on non-partisan outreach that educates citizens about their Constitutional right to vote should not be acceptable in a democracy.”Asked why political campaigns or parties, which often send mail ballot applications to voters, need not be held to the same rule, Bettencourt said the difference is that counties are using taxpayer dollars.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateRepublican state lawmakers have filed bills to codify the Texas Supreme Court decision that blocked Harris County from sending mail ballot applications to all of its 2.4 million registered voters.Senate Bill 208, authored by Sens. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston; Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe; Brian Birdwell; Bob Hall and Kel Seliger, would stop election officials from sending absentee ballot applications, regardless of eligibility. State Rep. Valoree Swanson, a Republican from Houston, filed a companion bill, House Bill 25.“We must...

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Taylor Goldenstein

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Texas Republicans file bills to block counties from sending mail-ballot applications

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