How long should people be jailed for illegal voting? Texas considers longer sentences

Top Tarrant County officials are supporting a push among some Republican Texas lawmakers to increase the penalty for illegal voting.

The policy would be a reversal of the reduced penalty approved by legislators two years ago as part of a sweeping election bill.

Members of the State Affairs Committee on Monday heard a bill filed by by Sen. Bryan Hughes, a Mineola Republican, that would return the penalty for illegal voting to a second degree felony. It would be a state jail felony to attempt to vote illegally.

After the 2021 penalty reduction approved by lawmakers, voting illegally could land someone in county jail for up to a year and a $4,000 fine as a Class A misdemeanor. But before a 2021 special session, Texans faced the stiffer penalty: A potential felony charge, punishable by two to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

Just weeks after he signed the election bill into law in September 2021, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called on lawmakers to reverse course and increase the penalty for illegal voting during a special session. House and Senate leadership differed on whether to consider the change and ultimately the session ended without the reversal.

Now, less than two years later, members of the Senate are picking the issue back up. Similar proposals have been filed by Republicans in the Texas House.

Tarrant County District Attorney Phil Sorrells said he supports the proposal.

“I’m glad to see that they are trying to correct it back to what it was,” Sorrells said in a written statement. “We should be making it more difficult to cheat in our elections rather than easier.”

A spokesperson for County Judge Tim O’Hare said he also supports Hughes’ bill.

Review of the legislation comes as election integrity continues to be a topic of conversation in Texas and Tarrant County, though no evidence of widespread fraud has been found. An election integrity task force was recently created by the district attorney and sheriff’s offices, with the support of O’Hare, to look into complaints of voter fraud and other election issues.

The bill makes it illegal to cast a ballot when the person knows of “a particular circumstance” that makes them ineligible to vote. As the law is written now, a person must know they are not eligible, not just of a circumstance that would make them ineligible.

Hughes, who chairs the committee considering the bill, told its members that for most crimes, it’s understood that ignorance of the law is not a defense. For example, a person who breaks into someone’s house and steals doesn’t have to know that the offense is considered burglary under the penal code, only that they broke in and stole, he said.

“Under Senate Bill 2 ... if you are a felon, and you know that you are a felon, you don’t have to also know that it’s illegal for felons to vote,” Hughes said. “If you’re not a citizen, you have to know that you’re not a citizen, but you don’t have to know that citizens cannot vote.”

Some speakers advocated for the bill, including Andrew Eller, who serves on the Texas Republican Party’s executive committee and is a longtime election worker. Eller said he was speaking on behalf of himself and the party. He called the legislation “common sense.”

“It’s just restoring where we need to be,” he said.

Others who opposed the bill said honest mistakes should not be criminalized. Election law is complicated and not intuitive, said Emily Eby French, senior election protection attorney and policy counsel for the Texas Civil Rights Project. She said law already criminalizes the kind of behavior the legislation wants to deter.

“You should not have to be a lawyer to safely vote without fear of imprisonment,” Eby French said.

Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn was not available to comment on the bill Monday afternoon.

Hughes’ legislation passed out of committee on a 7-3 vote.