Tuesday, May 7, 2024
State Rep. Mike Lang, R-Granbury, wants to make Texas a closed primary state, with voters disclosing their party affiliation when registering to vote and facing possible second-degree felony charges if they vote in the other party’s primary.
A second-degree felony is punishable by 2-20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Fourteen other states including Florida, Louisiana, Kansas and Delaware have closed primaries. The intention is to encourage party unity and prevent infiltration that can result in the nomination of weak candidates.
In counties where one party dominates, it is not uncommon for those in the underdog party to vote in the other party’s primary election. Opponents of closed primaries say that voting in the dominate party’s primary allows them to have a say in who represents them.
Lang’s eight-page House Bill 377 requires party disclosure at the time of voter registration. Anyone who does not indicate an affiliation with a political party will be listed as “independent.”
Under the legislation, a person will not be allowed to vote in a primary election unless the list of registered voters indicates that the person is affiliated with that political party or the voter’s registration certificate indicates such.
If party affiliation cannot be determined, that person must cast a provisional ballot.
Lang has also filed HB 378, a bill requiring proof of citizenship for anyone who registers to vote.
On Saturday, the lawmaker tweeted a link to an article about Attorney General Ken Paxton charging a Navarro non-citizen with voter fraud.
“My bill, HB 378, will fix this problem,” he tweeted.
The bill includes language requiring the Secretary of State’s office to confer with the Department of Public Safety to check the citizenship status of those who file voter applications.
Progress Texas, a left-leaning organization, gave the bill an “ugly” rating on its list of “good,” “bad” and “ugly” bills that it is watching in the 2019 Legislature.
The organization posted an icon of an angry red face beside the bill and stated that the legislation “targets all Texans – but most especially immigrants – by making the voter registration process unnecessarily complicated.”
Progress Texas further stated: “Texas elections historically have had low voter turnout numbers and this requirement would only make it harder to register to vote.”
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