The Patriot Post® · Texas Protects Voting Rights and Election Integrity

Delayed for months due to the shenanigans of Democrat state lawmakers who fled the state in July to prevent its passage, the Texas House has finally passed the Republicans’ election integrity measure that aims to secure the voting rights of all Texans. Governor Greg Abbott, who stood firm against the Democrats’ underhanded tactics and misinformation campaign, will soon sign the bill into law. The legislation has passed to the Senate for final revisions.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick noted the primary purpose of the legislation: “It is about ensuring that all Texans trust the outcome of every election in Texas.”

Republicans were finally able to gain a House quorum with 99 members present, as the 100 normally needed was reduced to 99 after the resignation of Democrat Representative Leo Pacheco. Some of the 49 absent Democrats expressed their frustration with party colleagues who elected to return to the state house. Representative Michelle Beckley lamented, “This is how Texas Democrats lose elections.”

Well, here’s hoping that more of these fleeing Democrats lose their elections, and if they do lose they can be confident it was the true will of the voters thanks to this new election integrity law.

You’ll have to pardon our letting facts get in the way of a narrative, but due to the massive disinformation campaign against election integrity laws launched by Democrats both in Texas and nationally, it’s important to note what the Texas law actually does. This law is not, as Joe Biden falsely asserts, “Jim Crow 2.0.” In fact, it goes a long away to prevent any such Jim Crow-era electioneering abuses. What it does do is implement integrity standards to stymie as much corruption and cheating as possible, while at the same time expanding the opportunities for legitimate voters to cast their votes.

The law eliminates 24-hour voting and drive-through voting, policies that were hastily implemented during the pandemic. (Drive-through voting will still be permitted for those with physical disabilities). There is no good reason to keep these obviously suspect policies in place (who needs to vote a 3 a.m.?), especially since the new law expands the early voting options to include voting on Sundays.

The other major upgrade that Democrats have dubiously labeled as “racist” is the ID requirement for casting a vote — including particularly mail-in ballots. To verify the veracity of mail-in ballots, a voter will need to include a valid ID number that can either be a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number. This eliminates the far more problematic and subjective signature verification system.

Other changes include the banning of ballot harvesting “in exchange for compensation”; the required auditing every two years of four random counties; the live streaming of counting stations in counties with populations over 100,000; reporting the results of mailing-in versus election day ballots separately; the barring of election officials from sending unsolicited absentee forms to voters; and the empowering of poll watchers who will be required to take a state “training program” and swear not to “disrupt the voting process,” while also making it a criminal offense for an elections official to “knowingly refuse to accept a watcher” or “knowingly prevent a watcher from observing an activity or procedure the person knows the watcher is entitled to observe.”

Democrats now plan to use Texas’s passage of its voter integrity law to pressure the two holdout Democrat U.S. senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, to drop their opposition to eliminating the filibuster. As House Democrat Caucus Chair Chris Turner declared, “Now that it has come, we need the U.S. Senate to act immediately.” He means to pass HR 1 or HR 4, the Democrats’ effort to rewrite election laws so they win.

Clearly, the fight for Americans’ voting rights and to ensure election integrity against the Democrats’ underhanded power-grabbing plans is far from over.

Speaking of Texas and protecting rights, the U.S. Supreme Court did not intervene to block a Texas law that effectively limits abortion to the first six weeks of pregnancy. “The American people are eager to humanize our extreme, outdated abortion laws,” said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “This law reflects the scientific reality that unborn children are human beings, with beating hearts by six weeks.” Eventually, the Supreme Court will take this up as more states test Roe v. Wade’s limits.

Naturally, Democrats will fight against the right to life for the preborn just as hard as they will to steal elections. We’re fortunate to have a few brave Texans to stand against that tide.