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2021 Legislative & Annual Report: Voting

4 minute read

Throughout 2021, disability advocates and self-advocates across the country have been railing against laws and proposals that would restrict voting for Americans with disabilities. As we learned on a Raise Your Voice call this summer from our partners at Secure Democracy, Texas has become ground zero in the fight to protect hard-won voting rights.

In 2021, this fight began with HB 6 (Cain) / SB 7 (Hughes). This so-called election integrity bill would have created significant barriers to voters with disabilities (as well as other low-income voters and voters of color). From requiring proof of disability for mail-in ballots, to giving untrained poll watchers the go-ahead to video record anyone they believed was violating the law, to limits on curbside voting, the passage of this bill would have set the civil rights of voters with disabilities back decades.

From our team, Executive Director Dennis Borel and Deputy Executive Director Chase Bearden (left, in the Capitol Grill at the beginning of the first special session) took every opportunity to work with HB 6 and SB 7’s authors and supporters to mitigate its effects on people with disabilities, as well as coordinated with our partners and the voting rights community to push back against voter suppression efforts in general. Still, CTD and many of our partners, notably, Disability Rights Texas and Secure Democracy, opposed HB 6, SB 7, and all versions of omnibus elections bills filed in both the House and the Senate.

Our mitigation efforts did pay off with the final voting bill that passed during the second special session. The following provisions do not appear in SB 1:

• A requirement to prove one’s disability. Early versions of SB 7 would have required voters applying to vote by mail due to a disability to attest to the nature of their disability, potentially revealing confidential medical information. Voters applying for mail-in ballots for all elections in a calendar year would have been required to attach documentation of their disability from their doctor or a government agency to the application. Both of these provisions were removed in later iterations of the bill after strong push back from the disability community.
• A requirement that an individual assisting a voter with a disability show ID.
• Allowing untrained volunteer poll watchers to record video in polling locations. A provision in SB 7 would have subjected voters receiving assistance to being recorded, even while at the voting station completing their ballot. Initially, the bill contained no safeguards on the distribution of images captured at a polling place. Later versions of SB 7 added such safeguards, and the final passage of SB 1 removed the provisions authorizing video recording altogether.

In addition to preventing these provisions from passing into law, we had some other wins, with help from many of our partners and our members making their voices heard:

• HB 1382 (Bucy) passed in the regular session to create a secure online system to allow voters to track the status of their mail-in ballot applications and mail-in ballots.
• The Mail-in Ballot Cure provision is included in SB 1, the omnibus elections bill that passed in the second special session. It creates a procedure for election officials to notify voters of errors on their mail ballots and to provide them with an opportunity to cure the error so that their ballot counts. The cure language even allows voters to use the online tracking system referenced above to cure certain errors remotely.
• In a surprising twist, Rep. Bucy won a House floor amendment ensuring protections for disability accommodations be added to SB 1. The Senate allowed that amendment to stand and did not remove it when the bill went to the conference committee. The “Bucy Amendment” protects the ability of voters with disabilities to request and obtain reasonable accommodations and modifications to voting procedures to which they are entitled under state and federal law. We believe this amendment will also help give us the grounds to allow people access to using their signature stamp and requesting an accessible mail-in ballot as a reasonable accommodation.
• Sen. Zaffirini included a vital amendment to SB 1 referencing CTD’s testimony on the lack of Voting Machine Accessibility Training Videos and the use of accessibility features found on the voting machines. Sen. Zaffirini’s amendment requires the Secretary of State to conduct a study regarding the implementation of educational programs, including the production and publication on the Secretary of State's website of instructional videos, to help voters with disabilities understand how to use voting systems used in Texas.

One voting issue we’re returning to in 2023: CTD and our partners at the American Council of the Blind of Texas have long argued that voters with visual and certain motor impairments should have access to electronic mail-in ballots. Technology has made it possible for voters who use screen readers or assistive devices to cast a private, independent mail-in ballot. But, by largely ignoring HB 3874 (Bucy), the state refuses to make it legal.

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