Should election judges be allowed to carry guns at voting sites? Texas House says yes.

Election judges and voting clerks who have a license to carry a handgun would be allowed to perform their election day duties while being armed under legislation the Texas House passed Thursday on a party-line vote.

Republican state Rep. Carrie Isaac’s House Bill 1128 — which would exempt election judges and early voting clerks serving as election judges during early voting from a firearm ban at polling places — touched off a debate between the bill’s author and Democratic Rep. Vikki Goodwin of Austin when the legislation first came to the floor Wednesday over whether the presence of guns at voting sites would make elections safer.

“Why do you want guns at polling places?” Goodwin asked.

Isaac responded that threats and violence directed toward election workers have increased in recent years, which puts the security of elections at risk.

“It’s becoming harder and harder to recruit and retain workers because of rising threats,” she said. “These are not isolated incidents.”

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Isaac mentioned threats against former Tarrant County Elections Administrator Heider Garcia after the 2020 election to bolster her contention that poll workers can become targets of violent individuals.

In written testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 2022, Garcia said the threats came after election deniers began casting doubts on the legitimacy of the outcome of the presidential race in which Democrat Joe Biden ousted Republican Donald Trump from the White House. Tarrant County became a lightning rod, he said, because it had long been a GOP stronghold but Biden narrowly outpolled Trump in the final vote count.

Garcia told the committee that threats directed at him included disturbing social media posts, such as calls to “hunt him down” and “let his lifeless body hang in public until maggots drip out his mouth.”

But Goodwin questioned how allowing poll workers to carry handguns during elections would address or eliminate such threats.

“Do you think it’s possible that voters will be more intimidated by gun-toting poll workers?” she asked.

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Isaac brushed aside the question, saying that only election judges who are licensed to carry handguns would be allowed to bring firearms to the polls. And the guns would likely be concealed and unnoticeable to voters, she added.

“We are more safe when people are carrying firearms,” Isaac said.

According to the Texas Penal Code, only on- or off-duty law enforcement officers may bring firearms to a polling place. Texas is one of only 12 states and Washington, D.C., that prohibit firearms at polling sites, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

HB 1128, which the House passed on an 85-57 vote, now goes to the Senate, which will have less than a month to decide whether to bring up the bill for a vote before the 2025 legislative session ends June 2.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas House OKs bill allowing election judges to carry guns at polls