Sen. Bettencourt Champions Election Integrity Bill SB 1111 upheld by 5th Circuit Court of Appeals
Senator Bettencourt’s SB 1111 will clean up the voter rolls and help make sure voters vote on a ballot for where they physically live!
Houston – As the primary author of Senate Bill 1111 which passed in the 2021 regular session, Senator Paul Bettencourt (R- Houston) crafted this common sense Election Integrity bill with the intent to make sure that individuals who are registered to vote are registered at the address where they reside. No one should be able to register to vote at an impossible address. This bill stems from years of testimony and floor debate in the Texas Senate. For example, in Harris County, there are approximately 5,000 voters registered in elections at private P.O. boxes as their residential addresses. The purpose of SB 1111 was to try and stop the use of private P.O. boxes as a residential address for voter registration.
“The whole purpose of this bill was to clean up voter rolls in counties because absolutely nobody’s residential address is in a 2-3 inch P.O. box! It’s preposterous that anyone would try to claim otherwise! SB 1111 is a common-sense Election Integrity bill that confirms people are registered to vote where they physically reside,” said Senator Bettencourt.
The State of Texas and several other county election officials intervened in the lawsuit. The State of Texas appealed the trial court judgement to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals where the Court found that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the lawsuit. Consequently, the Appellate Court reversed the district Court’s judgement and dismissed the plaintiff’s claims. SB 1111 is the law and should be enforced by all county election officials in the state.
“This suit was backassward as LULAC sued multiple County Election Administrator officials hoping for a consent degree, I want to thank Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office for the intervention of the state, and the appeal to the Fifth Circuit. Now, the voter roll can be cleaned up! For example, there’s 5,000 “private” P.O. boxes in Harris County and there was 579 registered voters at a residence/business address in Wichita Falls, or any other issue,” he concluded.
#####
