Harris County continues to make great strides in making voting easier.

Yesterday I had a demonstration of the new voting machines that will be in use for the May 1, 2021 elections. Unlike the “wheel” the new machines by Hart InterCivic Verity Duo are intuitive, easy to use and has a PAPER BALLOT! 

The process is easy. Check in. Enter your code via a touch screen. Insert your blank paper ballot. If necessary adjust the size of the text. Using the touch screen, select the candidates of your choice. Review your selection then print your ballot. Verify it again then scan it in the scanning machine print to leaving.

The ballots are counted and stored for recount purposes. The touch screen does NOT count votes or store your selections. It just provides an easy way to select your candidates and prints your ballot. If by chance your ballot is not correct, the election judge will invalidate the ballot and you will start over.

Couple this new system with the ability to vote at any early voting center and any voting center on Election Day and voting has become much easier. The County also provides a wait time notice on their website to determine how long the lines are and provides the voter with the ability to go to a site with shorter lines.

Meanwhile our State Representative Dennis Paul is working hard to limit mail in ballots, make voter registration more difficult, and make it illegal to pass out water to those standing in line.

#NoPlaceButTexas

Yet another example of #NoPlaceButTexas. This is truly embarrassing.

Today House Bill 1725 will be heard in committee by Representative Dennis Paul. The bill will end the use of drop off boxes or drop off sites for mail in ballots. It begs the question “Why?”. Drop off boxes are in use in 40 states leaving Texas in a minority. Again. Voters can sit at the table, make their choices, then drop off their ballots while taking a walk to the grocery store. Here in Texas, or at least in Harris County, voters had the option of dropping the ballot off at their local county court house or at a drive through facility. They also had the opportunity to mail it.

Dennis Paul defended this stupidity with an email to his constituents:

If a person has the ability to make an in-person appearance, they are able to vote in person just as easily.  Those who are disabled, sick, elderly, and those who have lost faith in the USPS, can stand in long lines and sweat like a pig to vote like everyone else. 

OK. The last sentence wasn’t exactly what he said but you get the idea. The bill will be heard this morning. I am interested in hearing Paul stoop to a new low by carrying Abbotts political laundry.

Representative Dennis Paul is in a safe district. He will have that seat until he qualifies for a State provided pension or until he wants to leave. It is a solid red, red, red seat. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he is leading the way for the Republican Party on filing bills to make it more difficult to vote.

Here in Harris County our elected officials have made it very easy to vote. They created Voting Centers allowing voters to vote in any location during early voting and Election Day. They created drop off centers across the County allowing voters to drop their absentee ballot off and trace it’s progress. They created over night voting locations that 10s of thousands of voters used in 2020. In 2022 they will adopt new voting machines with a verifiable paper ballot. Unfortunately Dennis Paul has filed bills to stop most of this. 

Here are the bills Paul has filed:

HB 1725 will prohibit voters from using a drop off site for their absentee ballot. 

HB 2265 confirms there will never be more than 12 hours of Early Voting on any day during the Early Voting Period. No voting earlier than 7:00 a.m. and no voting later than 7:00 p.m. This prevents 24-hour voting as some counties set up in 2020. 

HB 2263 makes it clear that Election Officials may not cure an unsigned, incomplete, or incorrect Voter Registration Application, Ballot, or Ballot by Mail Application. The bill also requires that on any candidate’s Petition in Lieu of a Filing Fee, if the document had to be notarized twice it must be accompanied with a signed affidavit explaining what was cured, by whom, and when after the first notarization.