{"id":185,"date":"2021-09-02T17:05:41","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T17:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/texas\/press-releases\/texas-senate-passes-bill-encouraging-partisan-election-challenges\/"},"modified":"2021-09-02T17:05:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T17:05:41","slug":"texas-senate-passes-bill-encouraging-partisan-election-challenges","status":"publish","type":"press","link":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/texas\/press\/texas-senate-passes-bill-encouraging-partisan-election-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Senate Passes Bill Encouraging Partisan Election Challenges"},"template":"","class_list":["post-185","press","type-press","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","press_type-press-release"],"acf":{"details":{"summary":"This is\u00a0partisan grandstanding at the expense of taxpayers. Common Cause Texas strongly urges the House to vote no on this dangerous legislation and instead focus on preventing the spread of the COVID-19 virus that has killed more than 55,000 of our fellow Texans and has more than 13,000 in the hospital fighting for their lives.\u00a0","featured_image":6522,"press_type":153,"authors":[null],"related_issues":[108,114,117,406,408],"related_work":[119],"location":52},"sidebar":{"helper_enable_sidebar":false,"helper_media_contact":{"heading":"Media Contact","manually_enter_person":false,"person":null,"name":"","role":"","phone":"","email":""},"helper_links_downloads":{"heading":"Links & Downloads","links":null}},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"content":"<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Texas Senate just approved <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/capitol.texas.gov\/BillLookup\/History.aspx?LegSess=872&amp;Bill=SB97\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">SB 97<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> after an extraordinarily rushed consideration of the bill. It now goes to the House for consideration.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The legislation, first filed on Tuesday, would create a process for partisan challenges of 2020 election results. It would also create a mechanism for partisan challenges in future elections.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Under current Texas law, election results are already verified by <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sos.state.tx.us\/elections\/laws\/advisory2019-23.shtml#section8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">post-election audits<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and there are a variety of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sos.state.tx.us\/elections\/conducting\/security-update.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">other safeguards<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to ensure voters can trust the election outcome.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Senate\u2019s bill would require counties to bear all costs of investigations pursued under it, including any costs incurred by the Secretary of State. It would also allow the Secretary of State to impose daily fines on county clerks for actions or omissions the Secretary decides are \u201cviolations.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The bill would also authorize county-level party officials to request a \u201creview of election results\u201d for the 2020 election. Former President <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/2020-elections\/texas-president-results\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donald Trump won the 2020 election in Texas<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, receiving 52.1% of the vote.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A recent poll found that <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.secure-democracy.org\/new-texas-poll-finds-strong-bipartisan-support-for-expanded-voter-access-rejection-of-partisan-influence-in-elections\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">90% of Texans<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> believe state lawmakers should take steps to protect their elections from partisan interference. The bill passed by the Senate today would instead inject more partisanship and chaos.\r\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\r\n<\/span>\r\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center\"><b><i>Statement of Common Cause Texas Associate Director Stephanie G\u00f3mez<\/i><\/b><\/h3>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I must have missed the memo -- when did county clerks become enemies of the Texas Legislature?<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">SB 97 would create chaos in clerks\u2019 offices by encouraging partisan challenges to election results, likely at the same time that clerks are performing the post-election audits already required by state law.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This bill would require counties to foot the entire bill for these partisan challenges, including the Secretary of State\u2019s expenses whenever the partisan challengers don\u2019t like the counties\u2019 answers.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the bill would allow county clerks to be <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">fined<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> by the Secretary of State -- potentially $500 a day per \u2018violation\u2019 as decided by the Secretary -- without any mechanism for review or appeal of the Secretary\u2019s decision.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our county clerks are public servants -- they are not enemies of our democracy.\u00a0 This bill thoroughly disrespects the work that county clerks perform every election and weaponizes our elections for partisan aims.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is partisan grandstanding at the expense of taxpayers. Common Cause Texas strongly urges the House to vote no on this dangerous legislation and instead focus on preventing the spread of the COVID-19 virus that has killed more than 55,000 of our fellow Texans and has more than 13,000 in the hospital fighting for their lives.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span>"}}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.6 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Texas Senate Passes Bill Encouraging Partisan Election Challenges - Common Cause Texas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/texas\/press-releases\/texas-senate-passes-bill-encouraging-partisan-election-challenges\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Texas Senate Passes Bill Encouraging Partisan Election Challenges\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/texas\/press\/texas-senate-passes-bill-encouraging-partisan-election-challenges\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Common Cause Texas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/texas\/press-releases\/texas-senate-passes-bill-encouraging-partisan-election-challenges\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/texas\/press-releases\/texas-senate-passes-bill-encouraging-partisan-election-challenges\/\",\"name\":\"Texas Senate Passes Bill Encouraging Partisan Election Challenges - 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