AUSTIN  —  The Texas House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 1599 Wednesday afternoon, which will make necessary modernization updates to the mail-in ballot process and election systems, improve the online ballot tracker, and enable more Texans to correct defects on mail-in ballots. This bill comes after more than 12 percent of mail-in ballots were rejected in the March 2022 Primary Election.

The bill was authored by bipartisan lawmakers – with Rep. John H. Bucy III (D – Williamson Co.) and Sen. Bryan Hughes (R – Mineola) authoring the bill, and after receiving bipartisan support it is now headed to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk for his signature. 

The following is a statement from Katya Ehresman, Common Cause Texas’ voting rights program manager. 

“Modernizing our elections systems is a bipartisan priority that takes necessary steps to improve the vote by mail process after tens of thousands of Texans have been wrongfully disenfranchised by the antiquated process. We applaud the bipartisan partnership of these lawmakers to work across the aisle and put the people over politics.”