Helps to achieve that goal one thing that it does is it ensures that every eligible voter will have the opportunity to vote one way that it achieves that is it provides even more hours of time for people to be able to go cast their vote let’s do some comparison here because so
You can understand the magnitude of the early voting time period that voters have in the state of texas texas provides 12 days of early voting and this law even adds more hours during those early voting days by comparison the president’s home state of delaware provides zero days and zero hours of early voting
No no one is saying that what happens in delaware denies people the right to vote similarly in texas because of the 12 days of early voting and even more hours of early voting as well as flexibility with regard to voting on election day it ensures that texas provides even more
Opportunities for people to engage in the voting process than the president’s home state of delaware as well as many other states across the entire country the law does however make it harder for fraudulent votes votes to be cast one area that makes it harder to cheat concerns mail-in ballots
Now mail-in ballots this is an area where both republicans as well as democrats agree has been the easiest way to cheat in the election process the law that i’m about to sign fixes that problem another issue that this law addresses is ballot harvesting it makes ballot harvesting a third degree felony
Now this is ballot harvesting is a serious problem in the state of texas and that comes from a federal district judge who was appointed to serve in texas by president barack obama that federal district judge heard a case a trial and during that trial there was an abundance of evidence presented an
Abundance of law presented and after all of the law and all of the evidence was presented the judge appointed by barack obama wrote an opinion deciding that case and in that opinion that judge wrote that ballot harvesting occurs in abundance in the state of texas showing the challenge that it
Poses and showing the reason why texas took up this cause to make sure that ballot harvesting fraud will be eliminated in the state of texas the bottom line of what the law does is what the members around me have said all along the texas law it does
Make it easier than ever before for anybody to go cast a ballot that does also however however make sure that it is harder for people to cheat at the ballot box in texas i want to thank the lieutenant governor dan patrick speaker dave phelan senator brian hughes and representative murr as
Well as the texas legislature for their tireless work in session after session to make sure that we got this across the finish line we have with us and i hope i’m getting everybody also we have representative doc anderson representative cole hefner representative james white representative keith bell representative
Travis clardy as well as a local representative matt shaffer we thank them for being here we thank them for helping to get this bill to my desk now lieutenant governor dan patrick thank you governor and thank you for coming to tyler for this brian hughes senator hughes had quite a session by
The way senate bill 1. senate bill three senate bill eight and senate bill 12 was it yes uh four cornerstones of conservative policies that will help make texas stronger quickly about this election bill and i want to thank representative murr and senator hughes for getting this across the finish line
You hear the media i’m sure no one here the left-wing media you hear the democrats say it’s tough to vote in texas well that’s just a lie the texas association of business did a poll in june and 95 percent of texans said it’s easy to vote in texas
When we passed photo voter id in the senate in 2011 i was one of the authors of that bill they said the same thing about that bill it’s going to suppress votes and people won’t vote since that bill passed texas has increased voter turnout more than any other state in the country
We have increased governor this is amazing we’ve increased turnout in the gubernatorial election from 2014 to 2018 when we ran by 76 there were five million people who voted for governor abbott and myself i’m talking about all voters in 2014 almost eight and a half million in 2018. you
Don’t hear that from the left you don’t hear that from the democrats we’ve increased voter turnout in texas by almost 40 percent over 10 years and the participation by registered voters 10 years ago it was about 58 of all registered voters and in this past election it was almost 67 percent so i
Don’t want to hear this nonsense and the lies that we continually hear that it’s tough to vote in texas texas turns out voters because they have confidence that our elections are always going to be fair and senate bill 1 will give them even more confidence we want to see more
People vote we want to see them vote fairly and we don’t want the cheaters to undermine our elections so that’s what texas is about turning out people to vote and making sure the elections are fair and honest and cheaters are caught governor back to you thank you
Uh well we are delighted to be in the district of senator brian hughes today which i think may also represent one of our hometowns longview texas does it not yes it’s great to be back in my hometown of east texas uh but uh senator thank you for your
Leadership on this uh turn the mic over to you governor thank you so much let me thank everyone for being here today it’s an exciting day and we don’t want to forget uh what brought us here today is a happy day a positive day we’re here because we’re responding to
Some real problems we’ve had in texas uh in longview governor as you know we have a county commissioner under indictment for mail ballot fraud anybody who tells you anybody who tells you there’s no voter fraud in texas is telling you a very big lie it’s going on today this
Bill deals with that as you know over uh hundreds of accounts pending against dozens of defendants let me just give one example as i as i close my part just so we know this is about real people who are trying to vote this is about people
Who are trying to cast their ballots but cheaters ballot harvesters bad actors paid political criminals are trying to get in between the voter and their ballot this is sworn testimony from a trial in hidalgo county this is from ms cavazza she’s a first-time voter she’s explaining what happened to her with
Someone who she thought was there to help her here’s what she says i’m going to quote her sworn testimony she says and then i go to the polling place and marcella goes up i go to the polls and marcelo comes up behind me i had the intention of that she was going to
Assist me how to do those things because i didn’t understand that machine so she started punching in the machine i don’t even remember the language in the poll so she was telling me you’re going to press here you’re going to press over there so i saw that she put it in favor
Of the team she was on and here’s how the voter concludes this is her sworn testimony she says this this vulnerable early voter new to the process she says this so i had the idea that she was giving me like a tour of how to do those
Things and that she was going to leave so by the time i told her okay let me let me let me vote on my own she said no you already voted wow that’s what senator bill one’s about protecting voters like miss cavazos like our voters in east texas in urban texas across the
State we have a great system in texas this bill will make it better protecting voters letting them cast their votes how does this bill make it easier to vote in addition what you’ve already heard if you’re in line now during early voting you show up at the polls and the polls
Close under senate bill one for the first time in texas you must be allowed to vote what if your job does not allow you to get off work to vote on election day your employer has to let you off but that’s not true for early voting until today because when the governor signs
This law under senate bill 1 that same protection for working people for real people will be extended to early voting so many things we could say about how it makes it easier to vote and yes harder to cheat we think we know that voters of every race every demographic every
Region of the state want their votes to count to be counted fairly that’s what this bill is about and we’re so glad to be your governor it’s an honor to have you back in tyler my goodness just months ago we were here talking about the social media bill thank you again
For all you do you should know the governor is very hands-on he’s involved in the details of these bills he cares about these things and lieutenant governor patrick this is senate bill one for a reason in case you didn’t know those numbers are assigned by the lieutenant governor he gave this bill
Number one highest priority for the texas senate and the second legislation and governor abbott and governor patrick continue to push these forward ignoring ignoring what we heard from the woke corporations who hadn’t read the bill ignoring the national d.c talking points and protecting texas voters the right to vote
I know we have people who have worn the uniform i know we have some that i know personally the right to vote is too precious the cost was too high for it to go unsecured and so senator bill won easy to vote hard to cheat so thankful so
Proud to be here today with each one of you and let me thank each one who made phone calls who made visits who prayed who got involved in america the government works for the people and your voice matters and i’m so proud to be here sitting against permission of
Andrew murr known reptimer for a while we hadn’t worked on a big bill together until this and i hope you got to watch him present this bill in front of the house if not it’s worth a look to go back and look you should listen to his closing mark see closing remarks he
Talks about a an election fraud that took place back in the 1940s and he might not be here but for that he may not talk to us about that today but uh i’m so thankful that he is representing the hill country and the texas house and he shepherded this bill through the
Process he and the excellent members behind us got this bill and saw it through and so i’m going to yield my time now and recognize chairman andrew murray welcome to time i appreciate the opportunity to be here and hats off to uh to governor abbott and lieutenant governor patrick
And chairman hughes we couldn’t have done it without any of you all of you were engaged in this process and i appreciate the opportunity to work with my house members to bring senate bill one before you today i’ll just point out i don’t want to beat
A dead horse here but senate bill 1 increases access to voting provides safeguards to ensure that all legally cast votes are counted updates outdated election codes and provides the basis of uniformity and consistency for all voting jurisdictions while still giving our local jurisdictions our local governments the flexibility they need to adequately
Address their constituents concerns and needs and so hats off to everyone for making this a reality couldn’t have done it without my colleagues behind me senator hughes congratulations congratulations now let’s make this final [Applause] election integrity is now law in the state of texas we’ll take a few questions
Well we’re in tyler because the lead advocate for this from the very beginning has been brian hughes if you if you watch senator brian hughes talk on television talk to the media talk to the senate talk to the house talk to me about it he carried a heavy load in getting this
Across the finish line and so in his district is the right place to sign sb-1 into law in texas [Applause] i’d be astonished if a law like this was not challenged in court uh we’ve seen it happen whenever laws like this are passed the first thing the democrats do is they
Run to the courthouse and try to challenge it i feel extremely confident that when this law makes it through the litigation phase it will be upheld in a court of law because exactly what we’ve said it does make it easier for people to be able to go vote no one
Who is eligible to vote will be denied the opportunity to vote it does however make it harder for cheaters to cast an illegal ballot those are the kinds of principles that the courts will governor all uphold have been on texas for several months now on this now that
This is law what do you expect to happen as far as other states possibly follow suit now there’s others for georgia that have but does this open the door do you think it will well listen texas obviously is a national leader as it concerns the laws that we pass and other states follow
And if other states are looking for a paradigm of what is a good approach to make sure that everybody who wants to vote is going to have the opportunity to do so this is that type of bill not all states provide 12 days of early voting with the
Additional hours of early voting not all states provide that people will get time off from work to be able to go cast a vote not all states provide that people who show up in line during the voting hours as long as they show up before the
Polls close even if it’s a one or two hour long line they will be able to cast their vote texas does make it so easy to vote that this is a good paradigm for other states to follow two more uh it doesn’t require that at all because obviously it provides
At least six weeks for a person to be able to get an abortion so for one it doesn’t provide that that said however let’s make something very clear rape is a crime and texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of texas by aggressively
Going out and arresting them and prosecuting them and getting them off the streets so goal number one in the state of texas is to eliminate rape so that no woman no person will be a victim of rape but any but in addition to that we do want to make sure that we provide
Support for those who are victims of rape and we have organizations that we as a state support that others support uh to make sure that anybody who’s victimized that will get the support they need absolutely i want to talk about baskin schools one of the largest districts in east texas
For staff and students today superintendent lynn torres said last week she wished the state would have given them more help with this in making the decision and more of a backing do you think you’ve done enough for schools to help them keep the doors open and keep their students and their staff safe
We think that the approach to schools is the right approach because it ensures that that the the ultimate decision maker for a child who goes to school actually is not a school it’s a parent in what what the the state standard does it prioritizes who must be prioritized and
That is a parent every parent has the right to decide whether or not their child will or will not wear a mask and a parent knows far better than an educator or some other government bureaucrat whether or not a mask is right for a child another thing that we’ve seen is a hodgepodge
Of different rulings from different jurisdictions across the state of texas there are some school districts that are adamant against having mass mandates while at the same time there are other school districts that want to impose mass mandates and that is exactly why it is appropriate for the texas supreme court
To decide this issue so that we don’t have a patchwork decision-making process across the state of texas instead we have uniformity coming from the governor of the state of texas [Applause] thank you so this much
