The bill “will consolidate confidence in the outcome of our election, making voting easier and more misleading,” Abbott said in a statement Tuesday after the bill was finally approved in the state House and Senate. “I am looking forward to signing Senate Bill 1 to ensure the integrity of the Texas election.”
Once several Democrats returned to the Austin Capitol last week, the party was unable to prevent changes in electoral law that, according to its leaders, will impose burdens that fall disproportionately on minorities and people with disabilities.
“I was born into segregation,” Democratic State Representative Garnet Coleman said before the chamber on Tuesday before the vote. “We believe we have moved forward and suddenly there is a new law that takes us back in time.”
Senate Bill 1 targets Harris County, home of Houston, which last year offered automatic voting and 24-hour early voting. The bill restricts the hours counties can offer early voting between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., and bans tactics such as those used by Harris County in 2020, when a garage was used at the Toyota Center, the home of the Houston Rockets. a place where residents could vote from their vehicles.
The bill also prevents counties from sending unsolicited mail voting requests, even to those over the age of 65 and therefore automatically qualify to vote by mail. It also sets new rules on postal voting, increases protection for observers in favor of polls, and sets new limits on those who help voters, including the disabled, vote.
The passage of the House by SB 1 last week was the main final hurdle the Republicans had to remove. The House and Senate then erased the differences between the versions of the bill they had passed in a conference committee, which required both houses to sign the final language.
Republicans on the conference committee chose to remove a bipartisan amendment that would have prevented election fraud charges against people unaware of their “particular circumstances” from making them ineligible to vote.
The House passed the final bill on Tuesday with 80-41 votes and hours later the Senate passed the bill with an 18-13 vote.
“The right to vote is too precious, it costs too much, because we leave it unprotected and unsafe,” said state Sen. Bryan Hughes, the Republican author of the measure. “This is a bill we can be proud of. It will help all voters.”
Texas Democrats – as party members have done in other states – said the only way to stop Republican laws restricting access to voting is for Congress to pass federal protections on voting rights. they remain stagnant on Capitol Hill.
“We knew we couldn’t stand this day forever. Now that it’s here, we need the U.S. Senate to act immediately to pass federal legislation to protect Texas voters from Republican attack on our democracy,” he said. Texas House Democratic Chris Turner, president of the caucus, said in a statement.