Even Willie Nelson had trouble voting this year under Texas' controversial new law - Chron
Even country music legend Willie Nelson encountered challenges while voting by mail in the March 1 primary this year under a controversial new voting law in Texas. The musician's wife, Annie D'Angelo-Nelson, told the Austin American-Statesman that she and Nelson had their absentee ballot applications rejected twice before they were finally accepted in Travis County, due to errors with the identification information they provided.
D'Angelo-Nelson told the Statesman that she worried other Texans encountering the same obstacles did not have the same outcome. "If they're doing it to Willie Nelson, what happens to an 89-year-old woman at home without a lot of help?" D'Angelo said to the Statesman. "I'm 65, and I'm fairly technologically capable, and I can find ways. But what happens to all those people? It's just not fair."
Thousands of Texans ran into similar issues during the March 1 primary this year, with nearly 23,000 ballots being thrown out across 187 counties, mostly due to new rules passed with Senate Bill 1, according to a report by the Associated Press (Texas has 254 counties, but not all of them provided numbers to the AP). In Harris County, the state's most populous county, officials said they rejected 19 percent of the mail-in ballots they received.
Under the new law pushed by state Republicans, Texans voting by mail are required to include their license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number on both their ballot application and the flap of the envelope containing the ballot. The numbers must also match what's on a voter's registration record to be accepted.
D'Angelo-Nelson told the Statesman that she and Nelson have voted by mail before, but this time it was "ridiculously difficult." To address any issues, D'Angelo-Nelson said they provided every identification number they had, including those not required by the state. "I looked up the advice and the advice was: put every number you know," D'Angelo-Nelson said. "It's just not right."
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source: https://www.chron.com/politics/article/Willie-Nelson-new-texas-voting-law-rejected-ballot-17028300.php
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