Headline Roundup • May 29th, 2021
Texas Legislature to Vote on Revised Election Bill
Summary from the AllSides News Team
On Saturday, Texas Republicans unveiled the final version of The Election Integrity Protection Act of 2021, after it was revised by a conference committee led by Sen. Bryan Hughes and Rep. Briscoe Cain. The new version of the bill would prohibit election officials from mailing all voters absentee ballots, and would ban drive-thru and 24-hour voting. It would also add new requirements for mail-in voting, and would prohibit the use of tents, garages and mobile units as polling places. The bill has strong support from GOP lawmakers, who have a majority in both branches of Texas' legislature. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has also said he will sign the measure, which Democrats said they would challenge in court. President Joe Biden called the Texas bill “wrong and un-American" in a statement Saturday. The bill will be sent to both chambers for a simple majority vote this weekend.
Coverage from left- and center-rated outlets tended to focus on the details of the bill and provided analysis on its likelihood of passing, as well as backlash from Biden and other Democratic lawmakers. As of Saturday afternoon, the story received little to no coverage from right-rated outlets besides Fox News.
Featured Coverage of this Story
Fox News Digital
President Biden called a new Texas voting overhaul finalized by state Republicans an "assault on democracy."
A draft of the bill was circulated around the state House and Senate Saturday, and the legislature is expected to pass the legislation and send it to GOP Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk shortly.
The bill would ban drive-thru voting and 24-hour voting and would require voters to request absentee ballots rather than allowing election officials to send applications to all voters, and curtail the use of drop boxes. It sets early voting hours from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
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New York Times (News)
Texas lawmakers on Saturday finished drafting a bill that would impose a raft of new voting restrictions, setting up the likely passage of what would be among the most far-reaching laws in Republicans’ nationwide drive to overhaul elections systems and limit voting.
The bill would tighten what are already some of the country’s strictest voting laws, and it would specifically target balloting methods that were employed for the first time last year by Harris County, home to Houston.
In addition to banning drive-through voting and 24-hour voting, which were used by nearly...
USA TODAY
The final version of the sweeping GOP elections bill, negotiated in private by two Republican leaders from the Texas House and Senate, was unveiled Saturday, setting up an intensely partisan showdown over a measure that now includes a longer list of new rules and restrictions.
With GOP majorities in both houses of the Legislature, however, there is little doubt about the ultimate fate of floor votes on Senate Bill 7, a measure Republicans insisted is needed to bolster flagging faith in the election system but Democrats blasted as a transparent attempt to make it harder...
