An elections official in Dallas holds a vote by mail on October 15, 2020. Thousands of mail-in ballots are being rejected ahead of the upcoming Texas primaries.
LM Otero / AP
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LM Otero / AP
An elections official in Dallas holds a vote by mail on October 15, 2020. Thousands of mail-in ballots are being rejected ahead of the upcoming Texas primaries.
LM Otero / AP
Weeks before the state’s March 1 primary election, local elections officials in Texas are mailing ballots back to thousands of voters who submitted them, citing issues with requires a state-generated ID. controversial new voting law.
In Harris County – Texas’s largest county, which is home to Houston – election officials said they received 6,548 ballots by mail on Saturday and returned nearly 2,500 – nearly 38% – to fix because of ID. incorrect.
That’s a much higher rejection rate than usual.
Isabel Longoria, the Harris County elections administrator, says it’s a serious problem.
“Vote by mail is everyone’s vote,” says Longoria. “So I’m very concerned – not only with the complexity of the process, but how that increased complexity will increase the number of mail-in ballots that we have to decline.”
The March 1 primary election currently underway in Texas is the first major election held in the state since Senate Bill 1a GOP-backed law that introduced sweeping changes to the Texas election code, went into effect.
Why was the mail ballot rejected?
Across the country, several states cracked down on their vote-by-mail programs after the 2020 election. Texas, however, had one of the most restrictive programs. Only voters over the age of 65, disabled, suburban, or incarcerated can vote by mail in Texas.
Despite warnings from groups representing older voters and voters with disabilities, state lawmakers have introduced new restrictions on voting by mail.
SB 1 requires that the ID voters use when they vote by mail – whether it’s a driver’s license number or a partial Social Security number – must match what is on their voter registration records. This new rule applies to both mail-in voter registration applications as well as voters using return envelopes to return their ballots to elections officials.
This request tripped over thousands of voters apply for a ballot by mail without remembering what ID they used to register – sometimes decades ago.
Chris Davis, elections manager in Williamson County north of Austin, said he and many other local officials worry that the problem will get bigger when voters return their ballots.
“All of us, county elections officials, are predicting higher vote-by-mail rejections,” he said. “And the window to fix that is a lot narrower.”
How vote problems can be fixed
James Slattery, senior attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, said election officials and voters face a difficult time sorting through any ID issues that arise with a ballot that is issued return by mail.
“Basically if there’s a problem with your ID number on the vote-by-mail return envelope, the process depends on when the issue was identified,” he said.
If the problem is discovered very early, elections officials can resubmit the ballot for correction, and the voter can then return the ballot again. However, Slattery said that many of the problems with vote-by-mail ballots were identified late in the game. That’s because sometimes it takes a while for the ballot to be sent to the voters. People also love to take the time to vote on their ballot, he said, so they give it back pretty close to the deadline.
That’s why it’s more likely that election officials will have to use a different process, Slattery says.
“The county may – but is not required to – contact the voter and say, ‘You can cancel your vote-by-mail ballot and vote in person, or visit the clerk’s office in person within six days of election day to solve the problem”. ‘ he said. ‘It’s a very complicated process…clearly not useful to people who aren’t in Texas.’
State elections officials say there are steps voters can take to prevent these problems.
Sam Taylor, the state’s assistant secretary of communications, said a registered Texas voter can update their registration online – even after the registration deadline – on a new website the state has announced. created by the state, to ensure that they have all the IDs that voters use.
“You’re not changing anything by adding information to your voter registration record, you’re just making it more complete,” he said. “So that doesn’t start the clock on whether or not you’ll be registered by the March elementary deadline.”
But Grace Chimene, president of the Federation of Women Voters of Texas, says it’s not an ideal solution — especially for older and disabled voters.
“Having to say that there are changes like this and then the expectation that they have to complicatedly log in and be able to figure out how to update their voter registration card, I think that’s really a thing. shame,” she said.
Taylor said his office also recommends voters provide both their Social Security number and driver’s license number – if they have one – on their application and return ballots, just in case.
Taylor says state elections officials don’t want to see vote-by-mail ballots rejected.
“Clearly we don’t want anyone eligible to vote-by-mail to have their vote-by-mail application denied,” he said. mail or denied their vote.”
Voting groups in Texas are asking voters to return their mailed ballots as soon as possible; that way there is enough time to fix the problem. And local election officials say they are doing their best to make voters aware of what has changed.
Ultimately, said Longoria of Harris County, county elections officials have limited time and resources to resolve the confusion created by the new voting rules.
“This is not something I can do,” she said. “No matter how many hours a day I stay up, no matter how many team members we have here, no matter how many people we have on the phone to help voters – at the end of the day it hurts voters. heart.”
