The invoice solely requires the secretary of state to consider — not show — election discrepancies occurred.
Republican lawmakers within the Texas state Senate have superior a invoice that will enable the state Secretary of State to overturn election outcomes particularly in Harris County, a Democratic Social gathering stronghold and essentially the most populous county within the state.
Below the phrases of the invoice, the Texas secretary of state — a place that has been held by Republicans for many years within the state — would have the flexibility to overturn the outcomes of elections within the county if voting difficulties occurred. As an example, if a voting location ran out of ballots and delayed voting by greater than an hour, the election outcomes may very well be tossed out underneath the GOP proposal.
The bill doesn’t point out Harris County by title. Slightly, the invoice states that its provisions have an effect on counties with populations larger than 2.7 million residents.
Only one jurisdiction meets that threshold in Texas: Harris County, which, as dwelling to Houston, the fourth-largest metropolis within the nation, has a population of over 4.7 million individuals.
Solely 2 % of voting places would wish to expertise issues in an effort to low cost the leads to the whole county, the invoice stipulates. A brand new election must happen, whose date would be decided by the secretary of state themselves, creating the potential for a delay in illustration for residents within the county. This could probably reduce into voter turnout for the brand new election date and probably have an effect on outcomes of statewide elections, skewing outcomes towards Republicans.
The secretary of state wouldn’t should show that voting points occurred to invalidate outcomes underneath the invoice – only that they had “good cause” to believe such issues did.
The invoice seems to be a direct response to the 2022 midterm elections, throughout which Republicans falsely alleged that ballot shortages in Harris County resulted in election fraud benefiting Democrats. Such claims have by no means been validated, and voters had been granted additional time to forged ballots within the county on Election Day final 12 months to treatment the issue.
The invoice handed the state Senate on Tuesday. It now heads to the Republican-controlled Home of Representatives.
On its face, the invoice seems to be a direct, partisan assault in opposition to Democrats.
“Republicans [are] weaponizing 2020 election lies to rig elections,” political strategist Sawyer Hackett said on Twitter.
“Solely Harris County — Texas’ largest Democratic county with 4.7m individuals — could be affected by this invoice. That is fascism,” wrote Voto Latino, a nationwide grassroots group devoted to empowering Latinx voters.
Elections lawyer Marc Elias, who incessantly represents Democratic candidates and causes in elections disputes, said he may challenge the bill if it becomes law.
“If that is enacted, it will likely be an unprecedented step towards state-sponsored election subversion. We’ll evaluation rigorously to see if and when a authorized problem is suitable,” he mentioned.
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