AUSTIN — After reports of ticket-flipping machines, allegations of voter suppression and other problems from November’s midterm election, Texas lawmakers have pre-filed dozens of bills to overhaul the system.

Democrats want to allow voters to register online and during early voting, while Republicans want to tighten registration laws and strengthen citizenship verification to crack down on voter fraud.

But at least one bill has bipartisan support. Two North Texas lawmakers, Rep. Rámon Romero Jr., D-Fort Worth, and Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, proposed bills that would require voting machines to produce paper receipts of ballots.

“This last election we saw many folks who said they voted for one person in a straight-ticket ballot and the machine voted for someone else,” Romero said. “Straight-ticket voting won’t exist this upcoming year, but it’s still good for voters to walk away with a paper receipt of who they voted for.”

The practice of one-punching a ballot to vote for one political party will end in 2020, the result of a bill passed during the 2017 legislative session.

The state confirmed that voters using Hart InterCivic eSlate machines - which are used in Tarrant and 81 other counties - appeared to see their ballots flip to the opposite political party due to pushing buttons simultaneously or before the page was fully loaded. The state said the machines were not malfunctioning. Hart InterCivic also said the problem was due to user error and not the machines, which have been in use since 2002.

To address Texas' aging voting machines, Rep. Celia Israel, D-Austin, proposed creating a state fund to assist local governments in replacing equipment. The eSlate's system was last certified in 2009, according to the Associated Press.

Here’s a look at other voting-related bills Texas lawmakers have filed.

Voter registration

Texas, one of 12 states without online voter registration, rejected 2,000 voter registration applications this year, including hundreds from Dallas County, because they were filed using an online tool from vote.org.

Rep. Eric Johnson, D-Dallas, wants the secretary of state to implement an online voter registration system. But his bill would also require counties to automatically register any eligible resident who is issued or changes a Texas driver’s license or personal identification card.

Johnson also filed a resolution urging Congress to make Election Day a national holiday.

Four other Democrats proposed electronic voter registration, and two others proposed automatic registration. A bill from Rep. Shawn Thierry, D-Houston, would allow auto-registration for college students.

Early voting and mail-in ballots

The bill Hall filed to have machines create paper receipts would also change early voting, including shortening it from 12 days to seven.

“It will shorten early voting and couple it to Election Day so there is no gap between,” Hall said. “There would be no ballot counting [during early voting] until the polls close on Election Day.”

Hall said his bill would reduce voter fraud and assure every vote is properly counted.

Sen. José Rodríguez wants to make early voting more accessible by allowing eligible voters to register in person, with proof of residence, and cast a provisional ballot at the same time.

Another bill from Rodríguez, also filed by fellow El Paso Democrat Rep. Evelina “Lina” Ortega, would allow residents who are elderly, sick, confined in jail or will be out of their voting county on Election Day to vote early by mail.

Republican Rep. Valoree Swanson of Spring wants to shorten the deadline for counties to mail ballots to voters from 45 days before Election Day to 38 days.

Voter ID

To crack down on voter fraud, Swanson proposed allowing election workers to make copies of documentation a voter presents at the polls or to take a photo of the voter's face if the worker questions the authenticity of the photo ID presented.

In November, the Tarrant County elections administrator said it's common to see a few voter mix-ups due to photo IDs not being properly checked at the polls or other mistakes made by poll workers.

Rep. Alfonso "Poncho" Nevárez, D-Eagle Pass, filed a bill that would recognize photo identification from a tribal organization as a valid form of voter ID. Nevárez's district is the home of the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, a nationally recognized tribe with more than 900 members.

For Rep. Mike Lang, R-Granbury, checking ID isn’t enough to keep elections secure.

Lang proposed verifying the citizenship of each voter registration applicant. If the state is unable to do so and the applicant fails to provide proof of citizenship, the secretary of state will be required to keep a list of those people.

"The unfortunate reality is that non-citizens vote in Texas elections," Lang wrote in an emailed statement to The News. "This bill seeks to prevent this from being a concern by handling the issue during the registration process and not on the back end after a crime has been committed. Just as it is important that every citizen have the right to vote, it is equally as important that citizens have the privilege to vote protected."

College polling locations

Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, filed a bill that would require four-year universities with more than 10,000 enrolled students to have a polling place on their main campuses.

In November’s election, Texas State University and Prairie View A&M students alleged voter suppression because of limited on-campus early voting opportunities.

“I represent a district with the University of Texas in it, and some college students came to me about this issue they heard from peers at other colleges - UT has two polling places,” Hinojosa said. “One of the reasons we focused on four-year colleges is because oftentimes students live on campus and don’t have a vehicle to get to a polling place.”

Hinojosa’s bill would not apply to Prairie View because the school has less than 10,000 students, as of this year.

Other bills