By Madden                                             H.B. No. 2551
       74R6193 DRH-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the establishment of and clerks serving at certain
    1-3  early voting polling places.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Sections 85.062(a) and (e), Election Code, are
    1-6  amended to read as follows:
    1-7        (a)  Except as provided by Subsection (d) or (e), one or more
    1-8  early voting polling places other than the main early voting
    1-9  polling place may be established by:
   1-10              (1)  the commissioners court, for an election in which
   1-11  the county clerk is the early voting clerk; or
   1-12              (2)  the governing body of the political subdivision
   1-13  served by the authority ordering the election, for an election in
   1-14  which a person other than the county clerk is the early voting
   1-15  clerk.
   1-16        (e)  In an election covered by Subsection (d), a polling
   1-17  place that is mobile may be established only with the approval of
   1-18  the county clerk and the county chairman of each political party
   1-19  whose nominee for governor in the most recent gubernatorial general
   1-20  election received more than 10 percent of the total number of votes
   1-21  received by all candidates for governor in the election.  The early
   1-22  voting clerks serving a polling place covered by this subsection
   1-23  must be affiliated or aligned with different political parties to
   1-24  the extent possible.  The secretary of state, after consulting the
    2-1  state chairman of each affected political party, shall prescribe
    2-2  the procedures necessary to implement this subsection.
    2-3        (f)  In this subchapter, "temporary branch polling place"
    2-4  means an early voting polling place established under this section.
    2-5        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1995.
    2-6        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-7  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-8  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-9  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-10  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.