HOUSTON — On Wednesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was live on KHOU 11 News at 6 p.m. to talk about voting rights and elections in Texas.
Abbott said the Texas voting bill, which would put an end to drive-thru and 24-hour voting, would help make elections more secure.
"I can assure you of this, there is no constitutional right to have 24-hour voting," Abbott said.
The reason, he said, is that poll watchers have to be there to make sure no illegal voting is taking place. He also said the proposed law adds more hours to voting than what previously existed.
"Texas is making it far easier to vote time-wise than ever before," he said. "There is nobody of any type of background, economic or racial, who would be deprived of their ability to vote."
Abbott was adamant that the claims that the bill is depriving people of the right to vote are "bogus."
Democrats said the push for election reform is an attempt to bolster former President Donald Trump's claims that the 2020 election was stolen. When asked if he believes the election was stolen during the interview with KHOU 11, Abbott said that what the state is doing when it comes to election laws has "absolutely nothing" to do with the last presidential election.
But he says he does believe there's voter fraud in Texas.
"Everyone understands voter fraud does occur in the state of Texas and we need to ensure always, every election, that there is integrity in the election process," Abbott said. "We are achieving that integrity while also increasing the number of hours that people have to vote and making it easier to vote than ever before in the history of the state."
KHOU 11 Anchor Len Cannon, who was interviewing Abbott, pointed out that our research showed that in the last five years, there have been 197 voter fraud complaints out of millions of votes.
Cannon pressed Abbott again on if he thought the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
"I'm going to answer about what I know about and what I know about is what happened in Texas," Abbott said. "I think that the outcome of the election in Texas was valid. However, as you know, as you have reported, there was a case of election fraud in Houston where somebody voted illegally."
The case Gov. Abbott was referring to was the one of Hervis Rogers, who waited around six hours to vote in March of 2020. He was arrested more than a year later, accused of voting while being ineligible to do so.
Abbott said he does not believe voter fraud altered the outcome of the 2020 election in Texas.
"There are other cases of voter fraud in the state of Texas this last election. It was not enough, however, to change the outcome of the election," Abbott said.
Abbott said that despite the fact there are "known cases of voter fraud," the results were valid.