U.S. Congressman Chip Roy has carefully documented the need for election integrity reforms in Texas, pushing back on the claim that legislation such as House Bill 6 and Senate Bill 7 are “new Jim Crow” efforts to suppress votes.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation has obtained an advance copy of that document.
“Voter fraud is real and failure of the states to better secure future elections will only serve to undermine public confidence in the ballot box, which is a cornerstone of representative government,” Roy writes. “At the very least, every state in the union should adopt limited absentee ballot use with same day voting requirements and no-excuse ID requirements that allow no room for fraudulent voting.”
HB 6 and SB 7 include common-sense measures to secure our election, he says.
“Nothing in the bill would ‘suppress’ someone’s ability to vote,” he contends. “However, it would suppress someone’s ability to commit fraud in an election. That hasn’t stopped corporate American or political operatives from lying to Texans about the bill in order to serve their narrative though. However, not all have taken to the absurdity of the ‘voter suppression’ narrative.”
He lists some recent examples of documented voter fraud in Texas:
- In Limestone County, Kelly Reagan Brunner, a social worker in a state assisted living center, is being charged with 134 felony counts of purportedly acting as an agent and of election fraud. Brunner submitted voter registration applications for 67 residents without their signature or effective consent.
- In Bandera County, three suspects were indicted last month on charges stemming from the 2018 Medina County Primary Election. They’re being accused of illegally harvesting ballots from assisted living centers.
- In Medina County, four people, including an elected justice of the peace, were charged in February with 150 counts of election fraud. The charges include ballot harvesting and illegal voting.
- In Bexar County, a self-described “ballot chaser” was arrested in January and charged with multiple voter fraud felonies. Investigators say she traded gift bags for votes.
- In Gregg County last fall, a county commissioner and three others were charged with 134 felony counts of voter fraud. The Attorney General’s Office says they urged ineligible voters to vote by mail, and they filled in a vote for the county commissioner.
- In Harris County, during the 2018 Primary, a video was posted showing a campaign worker for a State Representative candidate. The campaign worker approached elderly in a care facility and filled out their ballots and claimed that she had already done 400.
“Texas has more stringent voter integrity laws than many other states to be sure, yet it still has seen several examples of fraud in recent years,” Roy says. “The state was largely able to suppress mail in ballot fraud in 2020 because Texas didn’t widely expand mail in and absentee ballots during the pandemic, unlike states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.”
Still, more must be done to ensure that Texas elections are free and fair, he added. Texas should have the same voter ID requirements for absentee ballots it has for in-person voting.
Roy also took aim at Major League Baseball, American Airlines and other “woke” corporations attempting to undermine election integrity.
“Once again, nothing in this bill ‘suppresses the vote’ but that didn’t stop American Airlines and Southwest from publicly condemning the bill whilst sitting happy on the $4.1 billion and $2.3 billion in taxpayer funding they received from the CARES Act,” he writes.
“Despite the foul cries of the woke mob, Republicans should remember that any fraud is too much fraud and more needs to be done to secure our elections,” the Congressman says. “But Republicans should be cautious to embrace any bill as the gold standard, because as the landscape is today, no state has the laws on the books to ensure secure elections.”
He pledged to continue the fight against the federal election takeover legislation that passed in the U.S. House (House Resolution 1), but he urged states to make their own efforts.
“Until every state begins to make reforms such as the ones described above, there will always be a fight against fraud in our elections and America’s election outcomes will be plagued with integrity concerns,” Roy said.