From their luxury hotel in Washington D.C., Texas House Democrats are continuing their campaign to spread misinformation about the Texas Election Integrity Protection Act. The truth is that House Bill 3 will make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.
It is the role of government to preserve public confidence in the process. Currently, that confidence is low. Our democracy can only continue working effectively when people believe that their elected officials truly represent their interests.
Our state is great, but even we have areas for improvement and loopholes to close in order to ensure it is easy for everyone to vote, but hard for anyone to cheat. Anyone interested in the true purpose of HB 3 need only read the first page starting on line 19, which reads “reforms are needed to the election laws of this state to ensure that fraud does not undermine the public confidence in the electoral process.” This is key. And there are three notable ways HB 3 gets our state closer to this goal.
First, HB 3 eliminates the practice of mailing unsolicited ballot applications. Currently, public officials are able to solicit, distribute, or authorize public funds to facilitate third-party distribution of unsolicited mail ballot applications. Harris County sent applications to all 2.4 million registered voters in 2020. It creates confusion for voters who did not want to vote by mail and leaves an opening for bad actors to steal ballots or double vote. The only people who should receive these applications are the people who request them. This legislation closes this loophole and safeguards our absentee ballot process.
Second, to further safeguard this process, it introduces an ID requirement to vote by mail. Our state— and several others across the country—have seen tremendous success with requiring an ID to vote in person. To create uniformity and decrease the potential for fraud, it’s important that we extend that same requirement to ballots sent by mail. This legislation requires a government-issued ID or Social Security number be included in the applications and the mail ballots to ensure that ballot is sent to and by the person for which it was intended.
And third, it cracks down on vote harvesting, which is the practice of an individual or group being paid to collect large quantities of ballots. This practice creates a great deal of distrust, as the voter cannot be sure if their ballot ended up where it was meant to. HB 3 and SB 1 makes harvesting illegal and makes violation a felony to increase ballot security.
Distrust in our elections can lead to a breakdown of our democratic process, and as representatives of the people it is our responsibility to do all we can to restore that trust. By passing HB 3, we are taking important steps towards closing loopholes and protecting the voice of every Texan.
Representative Keith Bell (R-Forney) represents House District 4, encompassing Kaufman and Eastern Henderson counties.
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