{"id":1487,"date":"2022-02-14T18:08:13","date_gmt":"2022-02-15T00:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voterpurgeproject.org\/?p=1487"},"modified":"2022-03-23T18:28:36","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T23:28:36","slug":"texas-counties-reject-unprecedented-numbers-of-mail-ballots-ahead-of-march-1-primary-under-restrictive-new-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voterpurgeproject.org\/index.php\/2022\/02\/14\/texas-counties-reject-unprecedented-numbers-of-mail-ballots-ahead-of-march-1-primary-under-restrictive-new-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas counties reject unprecedented numbers of mail ballots ahead of March 1 primary under restrictive new law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Amy Gardner<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington Post February 11, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A restrictive new voting law in Texas has sown confusion and erected hurdles for those casting ballots in the state\u2019s March 1 primary, with election administrators rejecting early batches ofmail ballots at historic rates and voters uncertain about whether they will be able to participate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent days,thousands ofballots have been rejected because voters did not meet a new requirement to provide an identification number inside the return envelope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Harris County, the state\u2019s most populous county and home to Houston, election officials said Friday that 40 percent of roughly 3,600returned ballots so far have lacked the identification number required under Senate Bill 1, as the new law is known. In Williamson County, a populous northern suburb of Austin, the rejection rate has been about 25 percent in the first few days that ballots have come in, the top election official there said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTwenty-five percent of mail ballots from the starting blocks is a big deal for our county,\u201d said Chris Davis, Williamson County\u2019s elections chief. \u201cWe\u2019ve never seen it before. And yes, our hope is that we can get these voters to correct the defects in a timely fashion. But what if they don\u2019t, because three months ago they didn\u2019t have to? There\u2019s a learning curve. There are going to be possibly painful lessons that their vote doesn\u2019t count because they weren\u2019t aware.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the officials said that the sample size is small at this early stage and that the rate of rejected ballotscould improve as more arrive. Jennifer Anderson, the elections chief in Hays County, southwest of Austin, said her staff had rejected 25 percent of the first small batch of returned ballots \u2014 but by Friday morning, the rate had dropped to 4 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt seems like our outreach is working,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, the defect rate so far is alarming election administrators, voting advocates and some voters as primary day quickly approaches and many thousands more ballots are still to be returned. The rejection rates provide an early opportunity to assess the impact of Senate Bill 1, one of dozens of restrictive voting laws enacted by Republicans across the country last year amid an avalanche of false claims, many from former president Donald Trump, that the 2020 presidential race was tainted by widespread fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State Rep. Briscoe Cain (R), a leading proponent of Senate Bill 1, said in a text message that \u201cTexans deserve to have confidence in the electoral system.\u201d The new law ensures that, Cain said, by creating uniform voting hours across the state, expanding access for those who need assistance and enhancing transparency with provisions that protect the rights of partisan poll watchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m confident that local election officials will prioritize assisting voters through the process instead of gaslighting to gin up fear and confusion,\u201d Cain said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to adding identification requirements, the wide-reaching law imposes new penalties for anyone who registers to vote or casts a ballot but is not eligible to do so. It also empowers partisan poll watchers by imposing penalties on poll workers who impede their ability to observe the voting process, among other changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A federal judge delivered a narrow defeat to one part of the law on Friday. U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez ruled that in Harris County and in the Austin area, the state can\u2019t enforce a provision forbidding public officials to encourage voters to vote by mail, the Associated Press reported<\/a>. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton\u2019s office did not immediately respond to a message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rejection of mail ballots is not the first challenge that Senate Bill 1 has presented, and election officials \u2014 who are nonpartisan in Texas \u2014 fear it won\u2019t be the last. In January, counties also began rejecting a high percentage of mail ballot applications, which now require the same identification numbers as the ballots themselves. The law requires voters to provide either a Texas state identification number, typically from their driver\u2019s license, or the last four digits of their Social Security number. The number they provide must match the identification number on file with their registration record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many counties are experiencing significant application rejection rates; in Harris, the figure is 35 percent to date, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Texas, mail-in voting is open only to those who are over 65, will be away from home on Election Day or have a disability that prevents them from voting in person. Mail voting has for decades been the province of Republicans, who developed robust outreach programs and in many states championed legislation allowing the practice. In 2020, however, when Trump criticized mail balloting as an opportunity for fraud, many GOP voters began shunning the practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt feels like people were just sitting up late at night thinking up ways to discourage people from voting,\u201d said Jo Nell Yarbrough, a 76-year-old retired educator from Katy, Tex., west of Houston, who received a letter early this week from her local election office informing her that she had neglected to include an identification number on her application for a mail ballot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yarbrough sent out the application a second time and said she is optimistic that she\u2019ll get the ballot in time to vote and mail it back again \u2014 and she is also willing to vote in person if necessary, once early voting begins Monday. But Yarbrough, a Democrat, said she fears that others might not be so persistent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just making another hurdle for people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd many people are going to give up and say, \u2018I don\u2019t feel like doing this or that.\u2019 Not that it\u2019s not worth it, but when you get older, you don\u2019t want hassles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The GOP-controlled Texas legislature and Gov. Greg Abbott (R) enacted Senate Bill 1 in early September after Democrats tried unsuccessfullyto halt the bill bydenying Republicans a quorum in the House for months.The law went into effect in December despite entreaties from county election officials to give them more time to educate their staffs and voters. Lawmakers also denied local officials\u2019 requests to push back the primary date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, election administrators have been scrambling to understand the new rules, procure new materials such as ballot requests and voter registration forms required under the law \u2014 and teach the public how it will affect them. They have relied on guidance from the secretary of state\u2019s office, which in some cases has taken months to develop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That fueled the confusion about how to process mail-in ballot applications, said Remi Garza, the elections chief in Cameron County, at the state\u2019s southern tip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was a lot of information that had not been distributed to all the 254 counties in Texas, so different administrators had different levels of information with respect to how you could process these applications,\u201d said Garza, who leads the Texas Association of Elections Administrators<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That delay also contributed to a shortage of voter-registration cards as organizers with groups such as the League of Women Voters were unsure whether they could use their stockpiles of old cards or would have to wait to receive new forms from the state. The new form explains Senate Bill 1\u2032s increased penalties for anyone providing false information on their voter registration application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State officials told League organizers that they would not be able to provide the tens of thousands of registration cards they normally supply because of a nationwide paper shortage and rising costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nancy Kral, an officer with the Houston chapter of the League of Women Voters, said the state\u2019s top election official, Keith Ingram, told her during a telephone call that the state was not going to continue \u201csubsidizing\u201d the League\u2019s registration efforts. The League provides voter registration cards to every participant in naturalization ceremonies in Houston \u2014 about 45,000 applications since June 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spokesman for the office of the secretary of state did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that exchange. But the spokesman, Sam Taylor, said the office has tried to inform election officials about all the changes. \u201cOur office has been working as quickly and diligently as possible within a compressed time frame to provide guidance to both election officials and voters on changes to the voting process in Texas,\u201d he said in an email. \u201cOur goal from day one has always been to make sure that all eligible Texas voters can successfully cast a ballot, and that remains our goal going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials finally gave guidance<\/a> \u2014 in either late December or early January, according to Taylor \u2014 that the old registration cards would be accepted this year. The deadline to register in time to vote in the primary was Jan. 31.Officials also provided more forms after the League threatened to sue under the National Voter Registration Act<\/a>, which requires states to provide voter registration forms to third-party groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new law is the target of multiple ongoinglawsuits, including one filed by the League of Women Voters<\/a>, arguing that it violates the law by restricting voting access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kral has been disheartened by the hurdles Senate Bill 1 has erected \u2014 as well as the tone it seems to have set, she said. \u201cIt\u2019s just so complicated and confusing,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s a perception that the confusion is not only in the name of election integrity but also about influencing who feels comfortable voting. I don\u2019t think they\u2019d admit to that, but that\u2019s the message I\u2019m receiving. They\u2019re bullying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The late guidance from the state, as well as the paper crunch, has created stress for election officials, too. Garza, in Cameron County, described having to wait for instructions on the new mail-ballot envelope requirements before he could place his order. The new identification requirements necessitated an envelope redesign that includes a large privacy flap to cover the box where voters must provide their identification number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garza said his envelopes had still not arrived last week, when counties were supposed to begin mailing ballots to eligible voters. So on Saturday, he sent three of his staff members on a four-hour road trip to San Antonio, where a local printer had the envelopes in stock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe put them in the mail on Monday, and through the cooperation of our local postmaster, the voters began to receive them in their mailboxes today,\u201d Garza said Wednesday. \u201cThat\u2019s at least a week and a half later than we would have liked.\u201d And it gives voters that much less time to fix any errors or omissions on their ballots, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several election administrators said they are optimistic that the rejection rate for both ballots and ballot applications will continue to decline as more come in \u2014 and as they get the word out to the public about the new rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But they are braced for another source of confusion, which is Senate Bill 1\u2032s new penalty for poll workers who impede the ability of partisan poll watchers to observe voting locations on Election Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Davis, the top elections official in Williamson County, said the law has had a chilling effect on his ability to recruit poll workers, who have told him they worry that any effort to maintain order or protect voter privacy could be construed as a violation. But he also said he is optimistic that new mandatory training for poll watchers and poll workers will clarify what is acceptable behavior and what is not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPoll watchers are not our enemy \u2014 at least they\u2019re not supposed to be our enemy,\u201d Davis said. \u201cThe problem up until now is that in a poll watcher\u2019s quest to see irregularities, they may not have had a terribly firm grasp on the \u2018regular\u2019 \u2014 how things are supposed to run in a polling place.\u201d The training should improve that, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cain, the Republican lawmaker, said the new law \u201chas ample protections for partisan election judges in dealing with disruptive election observers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several election administrators said clashes between watchers and workers will be less likely on March 1, because it is a primary election. The real test of the new poll watcher rules will come in the general election in November, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s just fine with Garza, who believes that voters \u2014 and election administrators \u2014 have enough to get used to right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cElections are robust,\u201d Garza said. \u201cBut they\u2019re also very delicate. People need to mindful of how much things have changed since the last election. That\u2019s what\u2019s keeping me up at night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

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By Amy Gardner Washington Post February 11, 2022 A restrictive new voting law in Texas has sown confusion and erected hurdles for those casting ballots in the state\u2019s March 1 primary, with election administrators rejecting early batches ofmail ballots at historic rates and voters uncertain about whether they will be able to participate. In recent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1490,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nTexas counties reject unprecedented numbers of mail ballots ahead of March 1 primary under restrictive new law : The Voter Purge Project<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Voter Purge Project protects eligible voters against disenfranchisement by monitoring, reporting on, and organizing against wrongful voter purging.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/voterpurgeproject.org\/index.php\/2022\/02\/14\/texas-counties-reject-unprecedented-numbers-of-mail-ballots-ahead-of-march-1-primary-under-restrictive-new-law\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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