The Texas state Senate on Tuesday passed SB 1993, giving the Secretary of State unilateral power to throw out the results of elections and order them redone in counties with a population of over 2.7 million – which of course only applies to Harris County, home to Houston, whose population is currently estimated at around 4.7 million, Marc Elias’s Democracy Docket reports.
The bill, which goes to the state House next where it’ll probably end up passing, sets an extremely low threshold for the election overturn to be triggered – if more than 2 percent of polling places run out of ballots on election day, an extremely common occurrence that isn’t actually that big of a deal in practice – then the overturn option is in play. Democrat Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee has vowed to sue the Secretary of State if the bill is enacted into law.