Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday signed into law the GOP-backed package overhauling Texas' elections, solidifying some of the most severe limits to voting access proposed this year.
The Texas GOP's efforts to pass this legislation were twice thwarted by Democratic lawmakers who fled the state and prevented the bill from moving forward due to lack of a quorum. However, once enough Democrats returned to the state in mid-August, Republicans resumed advancing the election changes.
The election overhaul legislation largely limits voting by mail, empowers partisan poll watchers and rolls back local initiatives that promoted voter access. Voting rights advocates say these changes will make it harder for Texans — in particular people of color, disabled individuals and those with limited English language proficiency — to vote.
What will the new law change?
The massive 76-page law, known as Senate Bill 1, makes several changes to Texas' election and voting rules. Abbott and Republican state lawmakers say the new law will bolster election integrity and make it "harder to cheat" — despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud during the 2020 election in Texas or elsewhere in the country.
Election integrity is now LAW in Texas.
This law:
▪️ Ensures every eligible voter gets to vote
▪️ Adds more hours to vote
▪️ Makes it harder for fraudulent votes to be cast
▪️ Makes ballot harvesting a 3rd degree felony
Bottom line: it's easier to vote & harder to cheat. pic.twitter.com/p9IDQg95IK
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) September 7, 2021
The law bans drive-thru voting, which allows voters to drive up to an official voting location (usually under large tents), show photo ID and then remain in the car while filling out their ballot. This was a popular voting option during the 2020 election with 1 in 10 Texans casting an early ballot this way.
Another way SB 1 limits early voting availability is by banning 24-hour voting centers. The new law sets the early voting hours to be from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., prohibiting the all-day voting centers offered in Harris County, the state's most populous county.
However, the law does require more counties to provide at least 12 hours of early voting on each weekday of the last week of the early voting period. Previously, only counties with populations of 100,000 or more were required to do so, but SB 1 lowers the threshold to counties with a population of 55,000 or more.
Under this law, it is now a state jail felony for local election officials to send mail ballot applications to voters who do not request them. This is in response to Harris County's unsuccessful attempt to proactively send all 2.4 million registered voters in the county a mail ballot during last year's election.
Texans who wish to vote by mail will now be required to provide their driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number on their mail ballot applications and then the completed ballot's envelope. This will be used to verify the voter's identity; previously, the state used a signature matching process.
Establishing a ballot cure process is one of the provisions in the new law that garnered support from Democratic state lawmakers. Voters will be able to track their mail ballot online and will be notified of any technical errors, such as a mismatching signature. Voters will then be able to fix, or "cure," their ballots.
Apart from altering mail voting rules, SB 1 also gives more authority to partisan poll watchers by allowing them "free movement" within a polling place. Previously, poll watchers were instructed to sit or stand "conveniently near" election workers during observation of the ballot counting process. Poll watchers are also required to undergo training and can be removed from the premises for violating the state Penal Code — two additions pushed by Democratic lawmakers.
Under SB 1, the secretary of state will be required to conduct routine checks of Texas' voter rolls to identify and remove any noncitizens. The law also creates new rules for those who assist voters, including those with disabilities, in filling out their ballot.
How voting rights advocates are responding
Days before Abbott gave his final approval of SB 1, voting rights groups had already taken this fight to the courts. On Friday, the League of Women Voters of Texas and other state advocacy groups filed a lawsuit in federal court. The Brennan Center for Justice and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed a separate suit also on Friday.
Both lawsuits claim multiple provisions in SB 1 violate the Voting Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the U.S. Constitution.
Sean Morales-Doyle, acting director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center, said SB 1 undermines equal access to the ballot box in Texas.
"The myriad restrictions in their legislation will be felt most by Latino, Black and Asian American voters, voters with disabilities and elderly voters," Morales-Doyle said. "These new impediments to voting have no legitimate purpose in keeping Texas elections fair and secure. The court must strike down this shameful legislation."
On Tuesday, just after Abbott signed the bill into law, a third federal lawsuit was filed by Marc Elias, a prominent voting rights lawyer, on behalf of LULAC Texas, Voto Latino, Texas Alliance for Retired Americans and Texas American Federation of Teachers. This suit argues certain provisions in the law violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as the Voting Rights Act.
"Not only are we filing suit to protect the right to vote for all people of color, and the additional 250,000 young Latino Tejanos who will reach voting age in 2022, but to protect every Texan's right to vote. A thriving, healthy democracy demands maximum participation by all eligible voters," said Maria Teresa Kumar, CEO of Voto Latino.
A fourth lawsuit was also filed on Tuesday after the governor's signing. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and The Arc, a disabilities advocacy organization, are suing on behalf of several Texas-based groups, arguing the new law violates the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act by "intentionally targeting and burdening methods and means of voting used by voters of color." This suit also claims SB 1 violates the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 by imposing barriers that discriminate against voters with disabilities.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.