Rep. Matt Shaheen’s committee will take invited and public testimony August 4 on the rollout of Senate Bill 2753’s integrated voting system and on its oversight of the Office of the Secretary of State.
- When: 10:00 AM CT, Tuesday, August 4, 2026
- Where: Room E2.012, Capitol Extension, Austin
- Chair: Rep. Matt Shaheen, R–Plano (HD-66)
- Vice Chair: Rep. John H. Bucy III, D–Austin (HD-136)
- Format: Invited and public testimony; public testimony may be limited at the chair’s discretion; electronic public comment accepted on both agenda items until the hearing adjourns; interim charges only — no vote on legislation
- Live video: house.texas.gov/video-audio
- Submit comments online: comments.house.texas.gov (c240)
- Full agenda: Official hearing notice (capitol.texas.gov)
Chaired by Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Plano, the nine-member panel carries a 5-4 Republican majority and holds jurisdiction over the right of suffrage, the Election Code, campaign finance and the Office of the Secretary of State. The two interim charges before it are oversight-focused rather than legislative; because the committee is meeting between sessions, it will take no vote. The hearing is the second of two the panel has noticed on consecutive days, following an Aug. 3 session on election technology and voter registration.
The first charge, “Integration of Early and Election Day Voting,” directs members to monitor the implementation of Senate Bill 2753, the 2025 law that integrates early voting by personal appearance with Election Day voting and changes how returns are processed. The measure requires counties outside the countywide-polling-place program to reuse early-voting sites as Election Day locations, standardizes early-voting hours and eliminates the four-day gap between the end of early voting and Election Day, according to the Secretary of State’s Election Advisory No. 2025-10. Supporters cast the law as a way to consolidate election infrastructure and ease the administrative load on smaller and rural counties, while critics have questioned its effect on voter access, including a provision that lifts the requirement for registrar offices to stay open during weekend early-voting hours. The committee will track a Secretary of State-led working group operating with counties, along with a statutorily required agency report and recommendations, ahead of a target implementation date of Aug. 1, 2027. Members are asked to flag administrative, funding or operational issues that may warrant legislative attention.
The second charge, “Agency Oversight,” invokes the committee’s authority under Section 301.014 of the Government Code and the House Rules to monitor the agencies in its jurisdiction — here, the Office of the Secretary of State — including for fraud, waste and abuse. That review arrives at a pointed moment for the agency, which spent the past year managing a difficult once-in-a-decade rebuild of the statewide voter-registration database. County officials reported tens of thousands of stalled registration applications after the relaunch, and by mid-October local administrators had asked the state to pause the rollout — the kind of operational strain the oversight charge is designed to probe.
Together the two charges sketch the committee’s posture heading into the next session: less about writing new election law than about testing whether recent changes and the agency implementing them are working as intended. Because the panel is meeting in the interim, it will take no vote; findings from Tuesday’s testimony will shape recommendations to the 90th Legislature, which convenes in January 2027.
Committee members
- Rep. Matt Shaheen, R–Plano (HD-66) — Chair
- Rep. John H. Bucy III, D–Austin (HD-136) — Vice Chair
- Rep. Carrie Isaac, R–Wimberley (HD-73)
- Rep. Penny Morales Shaw, D–Houston (HD-148)
- Rep. Mihaela Plesa, D–Dallas (HD-70)
- Rep. Richard Peña Raymond, D–Laredo (HD-42)
- Rep. Valoree Swanson, R–Spring (HD-150)
- Rep. Steve Toth, R–Conroe (HD-15)
- Rep. Terry M. Wilson, R–Georgetown (HD-20)