2025 · Regular session · House bill
HB3909
HB3909 replaces the ban on using a wireless communication device within 100 feet of a voting station with a ban inside the room where voting is taking place.
Official caption: Relating to the use of a wireless communication device at a polling place.
Official report lists House author(s): Hickland, Zwiener, Alders, Simmons, Dyson. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.
Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.
Bill highlights
Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.
- HB3909 replaces the ban on using a wireless communication device within 100 feet of a voting station with a ban inside the room where voting is taking place.
- This is not permission to take ballot selfies or record nearby voters.
- The new disability-access reference points to requirements for accessible voting and reasonable accommodations, including special provisions for certain small political subdivisions.
What does it do?
HB3909 replaces the ban on using a wireless communication device within 100 feet of a voting station with a ban inside the room where voting is taking place. It expressly preserves what is permitted under the Election Code’s disability-access provisions. The secretary of state must require the presiding election judge to post notice of the prohibition in a prominent, reasonably visible place outside the voting room. The law took effect September 1, 2025. Enacted text · Official history
This is not permission to take ballot selfies or record nearby voters. The separate ban on mechanically or electronically recording images or sound within 100 feet of a voting station remains unchanged. So do the presiding judge’s authority to require a violator to switch off a device or leave, and existing exceptions for election officers performing duties, necessary election equipment, and people working at the polling location in the course of their employment. Election Code section 61.014
The new disability-access reference points to requirements for accessible voting and reasonable accommodations, including special provisions for certain small political subdivisions. It is not an unrestricted personal-phone exception for every voter. Section 61.012 · Section 61.013
What changed along the way?
The introduced bill would have limited the wireless-device prohibition to the voting station itself. The House substitute instead selected the entire voting room, added the accessibility reference and required the notice. The House passed that version without further text changes. Introduced · House substitute · House-passed
The Senate substitute would have retained a 100-foot restriction and added a room-based provision for polling stations using an electronic pollbook hardwired to a printer. The House refused to concur. The conference committee returned to the House’s room-based rule; its report and side-by-side comparison match the final act. The Senate’s equipment condition is not law. Both chambers adopted the conference report, and the governor signed the bill June 20. The floor-amendment index lists none, but the separate Senate substitute and conference documents were also checked. Senate substitute · Senate amendment packet · Conference report and comparison · Amendment index
For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.
Official bill versions
Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.
Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?
Voters and people passing through a shared building may find the room-based wireless-device boundary easier to understand. Election officials must post the required notice and explain why recording can still be prohibited outside the room within the separate 100-foot boundary. Depending on room size, the new boundary can be nearer to or farther from a voting station than the old one; it is not uniformly a smaller restricted area.
The final conference fiscal note anticipated no significant state or local-government fiscal impact and assumed state costs could be handled with existing resources. That does not mean posting notices or administering the rule takes no effort. Final fiscal note
Review boundary: This describes the statutory change, not a ruling on a particular accommodation, room layout or enforcement dispute. It does not replace other electioneering, recording or ballot-secrecy rules.
Official sources
- Bill history and latest recorded action
- Bill versions, analyses and fiscal notes
- Action history and votes
- Amendment index
Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.
