Election fraud a felony in Texas again after Gov. Abbott signs bill

AUSTIN, Texas — Election fraud is once again a felony in Texas after Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation into law that ups the criminal penalty.

The bill makes voter fraud a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The offense was a misdemeanor for two years after a Republican effort in the Texas House reduced the penalty amid questions over inadvertent illegal voting Abbott signed the bill without ceremony Tuesday. His office did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Supporters of the measure, including its author, state Rep. Cole Hefner, R-Mount Pleasant, have said the law returns the penalty for illegal voting to what it was for nearly 50 years and that the change is necessary to restore confidence in elections.

Election fraud has remained a top priority for the GOP in Texas since Donald Trump’s leadership of the party began. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Trump’s unproven allegations of widespread fraud fueled a push for a sweeping election law passed in 2021.

—The Dallas Morning News

EU lawmakers vote to restrict AI use, ban public face-scanning

The European Parliament voted to completely ban realtime, remote biometric surveillance — a decision that will put lawmakers at odds with the EU’s 27 countries in upcoming negotiations.

The blanket ban, which was previously agreed by lawmakers, was up in the air after a political deal fell apart late last week.

Lawmakers also passed additional measures for general purpose AI and foundational models like GPT-4. Under the parliament’s plan, companies such as OpenAI Inc. and Google would have to perform risk assessments and summarize the copyrighted material used to train their models — regardless of how they’re used.

The parliament’s entire draft of the AI Act passed on Wednesday, with 499 voting in favor, 28 against and 93 abstaining. The vote paves the way for the so-called “trilogue” negotiations between the parliament, EU member states and European Commission. The commission wants a deal by the end of the year, after which the new AI Act rules could impact companies by 2026.

Some members of the center- right European People’s Party wanted to include exceptions for finding missing children and preventing terrorist attacks, but these amendments overwhelmingly failed in the plenary vote on Wednesday.

—Bloomberg News