Election Integrity Wins: Texas vs. Big Tech

Election Integrity Wins That Upset the Left (full series)
SAVE Act | 2024 vs. 2020 Elections | Noncitizen Voting
Winning in Court | Texas vs. Big Tech

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Texas vs. Big Tech

While Congress has taken some steps to investigate Big Tech companies, states are also getting into the act. In particular, the Texas Senate committee that oversees election security has subpoenaed the Big Tech giants for election interference.

In August, the State Affairs Committee issued a formal document request to Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram; Alphabet, parent company of Google; TikTok; and X, formerly Twitter. This followed a May committee hearing in which a whistleblower alleged election interference and political bias.

At the May hearing, onetime Facebook content moderator Ryan Hartwig told the committee “the company took a particular interest in politics, and would often bend or break their own rules — for example, newsworthy exceptions.” “What I observed at Facebook includes interference with U.S. election activities, along with influence from foreign countries,” Hartwig said during the hearing.

If the companies don’t comply, the committee will subpoena the records, said Sen. Bryan Hughes, chairman of the State Affairs Committee.

“Big Tech firms have immense power to influence elections, and Texans deserve to know how this power is being used,” Hughes said according to The Texan, a news website. “It’s well known that these companies censor the free speech of everyday Americans, and Texas has taken bold action to deal with Big Tech censorship. But their ability to sway elections has got to be addressed.”

Texas already passed a 2021 law restricting viewpoint-based censorship on social media sites, but the U.S. Supreme Court tossed the law. Also, the state passed a law that went into effect in July to force more transparency and safeguards for social media users’ personal information.

Rejecting Ranked-Choice Voting

Since 2022, 10 states have enacted bans on ranked-choice voting (RCV), a complex system where voters rank candidates, leading to a process of elimination.

Five of those states passed bans in 2024. This system can allow—and has allowed—a candidate to win an election despite receiving fewer votes than a competitor. It also potentially undermines the one-person, one-vote principle and disenfranchises voters whose choices aren’t for the top candidates.

“This last year, another five states banned ranked choice voting, 10 states total,” Snead said in a phone interview. “There is still a big fight in states over ‘final five’ voting and ‘instant runoffs,’ which is a way to adopting ranked choice voting under another name.”

Tennessee initiated this trend of barring ranked choice voting. It was followed by Florida, with Idaho, South Dakota, Montana, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Oklahoma joining in.

This year in Kentucky, the Republican-controlled legislature overrode a veto by Democrat Governor Andy Beshear to ban RCV in every jurisdiction.

“This system has resulted in thousands of discarded ballots, widespread voting errors, delayed election results, longer lines at polling places, suspect recounts, and consequently, diminished voter confidence,” wrote Snead and Trent England, in an op-ed in The Hill. England is executive director at Save Our States, and Snead and England co-chair the Stop Ranked-Choice Voting Coalition. They noted that Alaska experienced significant issues with RCV in 2022, with about 11 percent of ballots spoiled due to voter confusion—more than three times the normal rate. Nearly 15,000 ballots were discarded during a special election for the at-large congressional race because voters selected only one candidate without ranking others.

The Alaska problems have led to enough buyer’s remorse to put the RCV issue back on the ballot in November.

Ohio, Congress, and Foreign Contributions to Ballot Initiatives

Ohio became the first state to ban direct and indirect foreign contributions to ballot initiatives in June 2024. Advocates hope to see more states follow suit.

It’s already illegal for foreign individuals or entities to contribute to federal political candidates, it’s also illegal in most states. However, ballot initiatives have remained a loophole.

California, Maine, South Dakota, and Washington have bans on foreign governments or corporations from donating to state candidates or ballot initiatives. But these bans aren’t as comprehensive as what passed in Ohio.

“That’s why the Ohio legislation was so important,” Sutherland told the Daily Signal. “They were the first ones in the nation to take not only an approach to ban direct funding of ballot issues, but also indirect funding as well.”

While a federal bill has advanced through the House Administration Committee and was proposed in the Senate, neither appear likely to pass this year.

In 2023, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) recommended Congress close this loophole after dismissing a 2021 complaint that Australian mining company Sandfire Resources contributed over $280,000 to defeat a Montana ballot initiative that would have increased the power of state mining regulators. It determined it was “outside the purview” of federal law.

“The FEC rule said no, ballot issues are not elections. We only regulate elections,” Sutherland in the Daily Signal story. “They said if you don’t like it, you can do one of two things. One, you can say ballot issues are elections and therefore they would fall under the purview of the FEC. I don’t think anyone’s really interested in that approach. Or two, you can change the law. And that’s kind of what we’re seeing on the state and the federal level as well.”

What Happened with Those Jim Eagle Laws?

Democrats across the country have decried new election integrity laws as “Jim Crow 2.0,” with President Joe Biden calling them “Jim Eagle,” suggesting they are a magnified version of past voter suppression.

More than 20 states passed election reform laws. The most criticized laws emerged from Georgia, Arizona, Florida, and Texas—states with nationally known Republican governors. This made for an attractive target for Democrats.

While the 2021 laws varied, they primarily aimed to expand voter ID requirements to mail ballots, restrict ballot harvesting by political operatives, clean up voter registration lists to remove the names of dead people and otherwise ineligible voters, and ban private funding of election administration.

The biggest test of whether the 2021 laws would impact voter turnout came during the 2022 midterm elections. The bottom line is that based on the numbers, the laws didn’t lead to any voter suppression.

The overheated rhetoric seemed at least in part a way for Democrats to characterize GOP victories in November 2022 as illegitimate. That’s because virtually everyone anticipated the historical pattern of a red wave two years after the election of a Democratic president. It turned out to be a red trickle—and Democrats sort of lost a talking point. Yet, they still shout “voter suppression” when the opportunity arises.

The voter participation for the 2022 midterms mostly matched the rates of previous midterm elections, which historically have a much smaller turnout rate than a presidential election.

Nationally, voter participation for the 2022 midterms matched historical turnout rates, with 46.8 percent—below the 50.3 percent in 2018 but significantly higher than 36.7 percent in 2014, according to Ballotpedia.

In the most criticized states, turnout either improved or remained stable.

Arizona’s voter participation was marginally higher in 2022—49.44 percent—than in 2018—49.1 percent.

“This bill is simple. It’s all about election integrity,” Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey said of the 2021 election reform in his state. “This change will ensure that active voters continue to receive a ballot and free up resources for county recorders to use on election security and voter education.”

In Georgia, the 2022 turnout was 52.59 percent, below 55 percent in 2018 but well above 38.6 percent in 2014.

Despite claims by two-time losing gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, voter turnout in Georgia did not plummet either as a result of the Election Integrity Act of 2021.

“As you can see, these reforms have nothing to do with ‘voter suppression’ or ‘Jim Crow.’ The Election Integrity Act makes it easy to vote by expanding access to the polls and harder to cheat by ensuring the security of the ballot box,” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp wrote in an op-ed about the Georgia law. “For Democrats, the left and their mainstream media cheerleaders, criticism of the Election Integrity Act is not about what SB 202 does to make our elections fairer and more accessible—it is about fundraising off fear and giving them more power.”

As for Florida, the 2022 turnout was 49.35 percent. That’s less than 54.9 percent in 2018, but well ahead of the typical 43 percent and 42 percent in 2014 and 2010 respectively.

When Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the election reform in Florida in May 2021, he said: “Florida took action this legislative session to increase transparency and strengthen the security of our elections. Floridians can rest assured that our state will remain a leader in ballot integrity.”

The Texas turnout in 2022 was 42.5 percent, less than 46.3 percent in 2018. But that’s about 10 points higher than 2010 when the turnout was 32.7 percent.

When pushing the Texas election integrity reforms, Gov. Greg Abbott said,

Our objective in Texas is to ensure that every eligible voter gets to vote and that only eligible ballots are counted. In the 2020 election, we witnessed actions throughout our state that could risk the integrity of our elections and enable voter fraud, which is why I made election integrity an emergency item this session.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/election-integrity-wins-part-5/