WASHINGTON
D.C. – The
Republican National Committee (RNC) released the following statement after the
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an effort to overturn Texas’
protections for voters who need assistance:
“Today’s decision from the Fifth Circuit is an important victory for Texas
voters and for election integrity,” said RNC Chairman Joe
Gruters. “Texas voters should not have to fear coercion or abuse when
needing assistance at the ballot box, and thanks to Governor Abbott and
Republicans in the state legislature, they don’t have to. The state’s
commonsense safeguards are there to protect voters from pressure or coercion,
while making sure they get the assistance they need.”
Background:
- In
2021, Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB1 into law,
which included commonsense election integrity protections like
strengthening voter ID requirements and expanding bipartisan poll
observation.
- SB1
requires that someone who is helping a voter to fill out their ballot (an
“assistor”) disclose basic information about themselves, including their
name, their relationship to the voter, and whether they are being paid.
- SB1
also requires assistors to attest that they did not coerce or pressure the
voter under penalty of perjury and strengthens Texas’ ban on schemes where
strangers take money for seeking out voters to “assist.”
- In
a decision today, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected attempts to
throw out these safeguards in the case of La Union del Pueblo Entero v.
Abbott.
- The
RNC – alongside the NRSC, NRCC, and the Harris County and Dallas County
Republican Parties intervened in this case to defend SB1.
- Since
2021, the RNC has intervened in multiple lawsuits to help Texas defend SB1
and its election integrity safeguards.
- This
decision follows the RNC’s victory earlier this month in the case of U.S. v. Paxton, where the Fifth
Circuit upheld SB1’s ID number requirements for mail-in ballots.
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