SAN ANTONIO — Voters in Bexar County have been able to vote at any polling center on election day for the last four years. Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen says its been helpful for people who need to work on election day and weren't able to get out to vote sooner.
"Fifty percent of our voters on election day vote out of their precinct," Callanen said. "They can vote where they are working, they can vote at school...and they don't have to race back home. For large counties it helps tremendously."
If SB 990 is passed into law, however, the ten largest Texas counties would no longer be able to use county-wide voting on election day and voters would be restricted to their precinct. County-wide voting in early elections would stay in effect. The bill passed the Texas Senate last week and UTSA Political Science Chairman Jon Taylor said it does have a chance of passing the Texas House as well.
Texas Senator Bob Hall, who authored the legislation, defended it on the senate floor last week. Hall argued that restricting votes to precincts would make elections more accurate. He also stated that he initially wanted to restrict early voting to precincts as well but couldn't get enough support.
"You have precinct votes spread all over the county and to aggregate those votes you never really know if something got lost in the translation in getting from the votes spread all over the county to central county to one location. It makes it extremely difficult to ever audit that because of the way the votes are broken up," Hall said. "With the votes being cast in a precinct it will be much easier to verify and confirm that the votes that were cast in the precinct ended up in the totals in the county."
Hall also argued that, in some cases, there was no way to know if someone was voting multiple times during county-wide voting.
Callanen said, in Bexar County, they do not have trouble keeping up with votes and it isn't possible to vote in multiple locations.
"When the voter steps up to the qualifying table we have electronic poll books. When you hand over your photo ID you are marked as voting. That then networks out to every other site. That means you can't go three sites down and vote again. If you appeared there it would say you already voted," Callanen said. "We have tight control on that."
Callanen also said the electronic poll books run on a VPN (virtual private network) to ensure security. Additionally, when a person votes it generates a paper ballot with results. That paper ballot is then transferred into another machine that is completely disconnected from the internet. That machine counts the votes and transfers the information to a hard drive. The hard drive is then driven to the elections office. The measures are in place so that the machines cannot be hacked.
"There are so many checks and balances in the system," Callanen said.
UTSA Political Science Chairman Jon Taylor said the measure does have a chance of passing and the House Elections Committee will be considering the bill soon if they haven't already. Taylor said election security bills have seen a plenty of support this session.
"If this a priority for the speaker and the lieutenant governor, and it appeared to be, then it could easily be sitting on Abbott's desk in a few weeks," Taylor said.
Taylor also said he doesn't know of any evidence that would support the claim that state-wide voting is creating an accuracy issue.
If SB 990 did pass into law, it could also face a legal challenge. The bill would apply to the ten most populous counties in Texas. If those counties account for a large portion of minority voters, then this could lead to discrimination claims.
"It could open up the possibility of a federal investigation with the voting rights act if this is a disparate application of voting laws," Taylor said.
Callanen said said the Bexar Count Elections office can't have a position on the bill. She said if local voters have an opinion on county-wide voting on election day then this is a good time to share that opinion with lawmakers.