Every Texas opposes Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 3.
Texas has a longstanding history of secure elections, and efforts by Attorney General Paxton and Governor Abbott to ferret out voter fraud over the years has remarkably shown just the opposite. Conservative legislators ramrodded Senate Bill 7 through the legislative process in the regular session. Committee hearings were cancelled unceremoniously with witnesses unable to give testimony, questions from legislators went unanswered, and large sections of the bill were redrafted and changed at the last minute with little to no transparency. Advocates expressed concerns that the effects of SB 7 will almost certainly make voting even harder for groups that Texas voting rules have long been marginalized — voters of color, voters with disabilities, low-income voters, and voters with limited English proficiency — and who are the most likely to be shut out when voting procedures are tightened.
Passing legislation in this manner diminishes the faith of the electorate in the voting process and contributes to the false narrative that elections are rigged. In the end, the institution of Democracy itself is diminished.
Read our full written testimony here, and view Every Texan Legislative & Policy Director Luis Figueroa’s in-person testimony here at the 13:47:00 mark.