SB 1750, SB 1933 and SB 1070 all amount to a multi-tiered effort to subvert our elections process and a healthy, multiethnic democracy.

SB 1750 prohibits larger, urban counties from having an Elections Administrator if they have a population of more than 3.5 million. The affected counties would have to rely on the tax assessor and county clerk to run elections. Right now that's just Harris County - this bill targets one of the state’s most diverse counties and the third largest county in the nation, making this a huge concentration of Texas voters and communities of color who stand to be impacted by this bill.

OVT's Board Director Carl Blair, submitted testimony against this bill in which he reminded lawmakers that "in the 2022 midterms, there were media reports of widespread outages of paper ballots at polling places all across Harris County. But those early media reports were later found to be wildly overblown." He also stated that "Lawmakers have launched a wide ranging attack on Harris County’s very ability to run its own elections."

SB 1933 is another election takeover bill that permits the Secretary of State to wield administrative oversight of a county office administering elections under certain conditions the SOS deems there is "good cause" for. It also gives the SOS the ability to approve any policies or procedures implemented in the county and to authorize in-person observation. Ultimately this bill gives the SOS the power to appoint a conservator to oversee elections in a county if at any point the SOS deems it necessary.

SB 1070 (a bill that won't die) is lawmakers' extreme measure to pave the way for Texas to exit the ERIC system (Electronic Registration Information Center) despite there being no justifiable reason for this move and despite even the Secretary of State's office stating that ERIC is a necessary tool for good, effective voter list maintenance and making sure voters are not registering or voting in more than one state at the same time.

NONE of these bills will make voting better for Texans, nor would they better Texas elections. They do however reflect a damning trend this session of bills that target our elections, our local officials, local DAs, our judicial process, our schools and our students and communities of color. Far beyond voter suppression, these measures represent an unrelenting agenda to silence the voice and power of the people of Texas.