Position: Voting Rights & Election Laws

Support every citizen's right to vote (including online voter registration and same-day registration), uniformly enforced election procedures, clearly stated election laws that facilitate voter engagement and turnout.

Position In Brief: 
The League of Women Voters of Texas supports election laws that facilitate citizen participation and voter convenience as well as monitor all legislation relating to HAVA.

ELECTION LAWS AND VOTING RIGHTS, 1999 (revised), 2010 The League of Women Voters of Texas supports every citizen's right to vote, improvement in voter registration procedures, uniformly enforced election procedures, clearly stated election laws that facilitate citizen participation, and the right to a secret ballot.

Specific measures include:

• Adequate safeguards against fraud
• Convenience to the voters
• Impartiality of treatment for all voters
• No declaration of party affiliation when registering
• Revision of election laws to ensure enforcement
• Supervision of all local elections by a single county election authority responsible to a central state authority
• Mandatory uniform training for all election personnel
• Provision for jointly conducted primaries

Criteria for election administration should include:

• Reasonable costs for conducting elections
• Election laws and procedures that uniformly and regularly produce honest and accurate results

The League of Women Voters of Texas supports election laws that facilitate citizen participation and voter convenience, as well as voting procedures that may increase voter participation. Our support includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• The use of uniform election dates for local and state elections whenever possible
• Consolidation of polling places when several governmental entities conduct elections simultaneously
• Reduction of the number of days between the primary and general elections
• Unlimited access to vote-by-mail with no restrictions
• A permanent vote-by-mail list on which any voter may request to be placed
• The establishment of guidelines which would allow jurisdictions to conduct all vote-by-mail elections
• Election day registration
• Election day centralized voting, with applicable safeguards
• Poll-site Internet voting for military/overseas voters