Can Rep. Toth Save Texas Elections? Inside the Election Accuracy, Transparency, and Accountability Act

Topic: Elections

Texas State Representatives Steve Toth and Terry Wilson have sponsored a bill, Texas House Bill 5234, that is currently waiting to be heard by the House Elections Committee.  It is otherwise known as the Election Accuracy, Transparency, and Accountability Act.  Given that Texas has been a slam-dunk Republican state for the first fifth of this millennium, and has not produced Democrat electors since 1976, many take Texas for granted and may not see the need for significant election reform.

This includes some of the Conservative, Inc., commentariat who lack a clear picture of where elections in America stand today and fail to see that Texas is exactly where Georgia was in 2016 – a Republican (Trump) presidential win between 5 and 6 points in margin.  I have been vocal in my belief that Texas, without change such as that presented in Toth’s bill, will produce Democrat electors no later than 2032.  The I-35 corridor has become a corrupt cesspool of fraud, with obvious actors becoming more aggressive in places like Austin, and establishment Republican officials in the “pinkish” counties begging to be shown political mercy.  Nearly 90% of Texas’s vote comes from urban or suburban voters, and the Texas frontier is maxed out in its share of Republican support and population growth relative to the concrete jungles.  Even significant gains in the Rio Grande Valley fail to keep pace with the supposed losses in former Republican strongholds (think one step forward, four steps backward).

In fact, I believe Texas had one of the filthiest elections of any state in 2020, and should have gone to President Trump by a margin of at least 14.0%, not the measly 5.6% it settled at.

I have personally known Rep. Toth since 2021, when Texas appeared likely to throw in with Arizona on a “full forensic audit,” of which there existed no standards for conduct.  Toth had proposed this action for many Texas counties and phoned me when I was at the Sioux Falls Cyber Symposium to fill me in on President Trump’s talks with Governor Greg Abbott.  I was floored to learn that Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick would be imminently backing Toth’s audit plan, and announced it from the stage during my presentation, to great excitement and anticipation.  Abbott subsequently failed to back the audit plan, despite his reported willingness to move forward with it, and it died off when the Maricopa audit findings were made public.  Ironically, the unity within the election integrity movement ended around the same time, and the pervasive infighting has been with us ever since.

Note: The infighting in this movement is juvenile, not productive, harmful, discrediting, and dissuading to outsiders, and should be ceased by all practicing it.

Let’s see what the meat and potatoes of Toth’s bill look like.  My commentary for each point will be italicized.

REDUCES EARLY VOTING PERIOD

Good news.  Early voting began in Texas in 1917, and within 70 years, became a free-for-all, with no excuse necessary to vote early.  I believe early voting should be banned with exceptions granted only for those who legitimately cannot vote on Election Day (why have an Election Day at all if voting is not restricted to that day?).

Texas has two full weeks of early voting for normal statewide or presidential elections, which of course is stretched, pulled, and abused by urban counties.  In response to the COVID scam of 2020, Governor Abbott foolishly granted a third week of early voting, which gave Democrats ample time to seriously cheat the elections, going as far to organize “drive through” voting lanes. “Too dangerous to get out of your car and vote?  Well, just hand your IDs through this window and we will pass you the paper.”

This is a good start, and honestly, a more palatable way to get it across given that we must further reduce precinct sizes to fully eradicate early voting.  Per this bill, In-person voting would start the week before Election Day, on Monday, and run straight through the big day.

This addresses Point Five (Early Voting) of my Ten Point plan.

PRECINCT REFORMS

Former Arizona State Representative Liz Harris, unjustly expelled from the legislature last week, recommended precinct sizes of 1,200 or fewer registered voter in a precinct in her canvassing summary.  Many precincts in Maricopa County had more than 10,000 registered voters at the time of the disgraceful 2020 election, and such a massive number of voters assigned to a single precinct writes itself the prescription of mail-in ballots and early voting to get around what would be an impossible task of turning out the entire voter roll on a single day we have come to refer to as “Election Day.”

This is certainly by design and makes it impossible to maintain an accurate voter roll.  A voter roll with 10,000 registered in a precinct with 98% clerical accuracy would still contain 200 ineligible, fictitious, or repeated registrations that mail or electronic fraud could be utilized to cast a ballot for (phantom votes).

Toth’s bill reduces the maximum number of registered voters in a precinct from 5,000 to 2,000, which marks damn good progress and will have immediate impact in Harris, Travis, Bexar, Williamson, and DFW Metroplex counties.  This is the first step to de-normalizing mail-in and early voting and getting in position to have a one-day, one-vote election system in the future.  This portion of the bill also sets forth many commonsense tweaks and specifies allowable voting locations, as made visible in the above image, and also makes drive through voting a felony offense in most cases (see below):

This addresses Point Six (Smaller Precincts) of my Ten Point plan, and partially addresses Point One (Clean Out Rolls).

ELECTION MATERIALS SUPPLY

Toth bites cheating Harris County right in the ass, with serious penalties, including removal or criminal charges, on the table for interfering with the proper material support of an election.

VENDOR/CHAIN OF CUSTODY CONTROLS

This portion of the bill takes major lessons learned from the catastrophe that has become Arizona’s elections, dominated by chain of custody failures, interference by a major vendor (Runbeck), and the relinquishing of local election controls.

Toth sets the stage for machine-free elections, building on the smaller precinct sizes proposed earlier in the bill with a call for ballots to be designed for hand-marking on simple paper that can be audited without being marred by confusing QR codes or anything “not readable by the human eye.”

Notably, Toth simply stipulates that existing law be followed, particularly regarding numbering of the ballots.  This law, like many others, has been ignored in most sizable Texas counties, such as Tarrant County, which miraculously turned “blue” in 2020 for the first time since 1964, despite a record Republican vote gain.  Much can be recovered if Texas official would simply follow the law.

This partially addresses Point Three (Paper Ballots) and begins a potential move toward Point Two (Ban Electronics) of my Ten Point plan.

LOCAL TRANSPARENCY AND COUNTING

I believe the core problem to be solved in election integrity is to figure out how to provide optimum transparency, which would give the American public the ability to accept election results as legitimate, and decided by real voters, with the results reflecting their will as cast at the ballot box. 

This section of Toth’s bill specifies procedures for vote tallying at these beautiful, smaller precincts that will be hand-counting auditable ballots printed in accordance with Texas law.  All election activities within a precinct are to be video-recorded, and if possible, live-streamed for public viewing.  Preventing Runbeck-level disasters is a priority here, as mail-in ballots (which should be banned) are to be counted at the precinct in which the voter would have voted in person, not transported, and counted elsewhere, such as a centralized voting center.

This addresses Point Nine (Transparency) of my Ten Point plan.

ELECTRONIC POLL BOOKS GONE

No more electronic poll books, as precincts will be required to furnish a physical poll book that will be signed by the actual voter when he or she shows up to vote.  This, when combined with strict ID verification procedures, eliminates the possibility of phantom voters being “checked in” by electronic means.

This partially satisfies Point Two (Ban Electronics) of my Ten Point plan.

SUMMARY

Toth’s bill is the best bill yet, and for a large state, pretty damn good.  Only Arkansas, in my opinion, has stronger legislation on the table this year.

Out of my Ten Point Plan, Toth’s bill addresses or paves the way for(*), either fully or partially, the following points:

1)    Clean Out the Voter Rolls

2)    Ban All Electronic Voting Systems*

3)    Voter ID with Paper Ballots Only

5)   Restrict Early Voting

6)   Smaller Precinct Sizes

9)   New Reporting Requirements for Transparency

10) Heavy Prison Sentences for those who Commit Election Fraud

Representative Toth needs your support.  This bill needs to be heard by the Elections Committee this week, so it is imperative that you contact Representative Reggie Smith, Chairman of the House Elections Committee, but using the contact options present on his page, linked here.

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