Rep. Matt Shaheen’s committee will take invited and public testimony Aug. 3 on emerging election technology and AI in political communications, and on the strained rollout of the state’s TEAM voter-registration system.
- When: 11:00 AM CT, Monday, August 3, 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, primary and general elections, the Election Code, campaign finance and the Office of the Secretary of State. The two interim charges before it are framed as fact-finding, not lawmaking; because the committee is meeting between sessions, it will take no vote on legislation. Its findings are meant to inform bills filed when the 90th Legislature convenes in January 2027.
The first charge, “Technology in Elections,” directs members to study the growing role of new and rapidly evolving technologies in the election process and in political communications. That reaches from the machines and databases counties use to run elections to the artificial-intelligence tools now surfacing in campaign advertising. The Legislature has already begun to respond: in 2025 lawmakers passed House Bill 366, which requires certain political advertising that uses AI-generated or otherwise altered images to carry a disclosure that the depicted events did not occur, with the Texas Ethics Commission setting the rules. That built on an earlier Election Code provision making it a crime to publish a deceptive deepfake video within 30 days of an election with intent to influence the result. Members are expected to weigh whether current disclosure and criminal statutes keep up with generative AI.
The second charge, “Voter Registration,” lands squarely on a live controversy. The notice asks members to inventory the county systems that operate offline from the state and to analyze the burden of supporting multiple software platforms across Texas, then to recommend ways to streamline voter-roll maintenance. The context is the Secretary of State’s once-in-a-decade overhaul of the statewide Texas Election Administration Management (TEAM) system, relaunched in July 2025. County officials reported that the new system stalled registration processing, with Bexar County alone citing more than 40,000 pending applications and Tarrant and Travis counties reporting thousands more, along with problems that spilled into jury-selection rolls. By October, groups representing local election administrators had asked the state to halt the rollout. The migration itself was accelerated by Senate Bill 2382, which pushed counties toward the centralized platform.
The Secretary of State’s office has said many early problems stemmed from unfamiliarity with the upgraded software and has assigned dozens of staff to help counties, but the episode has sharpened questions about how much the state should centralize a function counties have long managed. Because the panel is meeting in the interim, it will take no vote; testimony gathered Monday will shape recommendations to the 90th Legislature.
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)