With the 2025 Texas Legislative session approaching, election integrity is once again a top issue, and bills have already been filed to address it. There are still outstanding issues from the 2022 election that need to be addressed.
State Senator Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) told KTRH that the ballot distribution issue still hasn't been properly handled. He said, "The election administration office literally left 3 million ballot sheets in the warehouse, and couldn't get the ballots to the polls. That is fixed in this package of seven bills."
Bettencourt says his bills will also help to improve the state's ability to audit elections. He pointed out that despite improvements to Harris County elections under the County Clerk, there are still some concerning issues. He noted that the Harris County Clerk's reconciliation documents show that there were 2,800 more votes than voters in Harris County, something improved auditing could help address.
Another issue that Bettencourt's election integrity package covers is the time it takes for counties to report their votes to the Secretary of State. He said, "It's important to make sure that we keep election results reported within 24 hours. And that's part of this election package."