Texas Election Law Leads to Increase in Rejected Mail-in Ballot Applications - The Wall Street Journal
AUSTIN, Texas—Texas counties say confusion stemming from a new state election law is leading them to reject an unusually high proportion of applications for mail-in ballots.
Texas Senate Bill 1, passed in August after walkouts by Democrats stymied its progress for months, broadly tightened voting procedures across the state. It is now being tested as the state prepares for its March 1 primary election, the first primary in the country.
Mail-in ballots in Texas are available only to disabled voters or those over 65. The new law requires that voters provide either a driver’s license number or social security number that matches their voting file. Previously, such ID was required when registering to vote but not again when requesting to vote by mail. Voter registrars said many people don’t remember which type of identification they used to register, in some cases, decades ago.
In Harris County, the country’s third largest county, which includes Houston, election officials said 35% of the 1,373 mail-in ballot applications received as of Tuesday for the March 1 primary had been rejected for reasons stemming from the new law’s requirements.
“We are seeing a significant increase in the percentage of rejected mail-in ballot applications, which certainly raises a red flag,” said Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria. “What we’re seeing here is a direct byproduct of SB1, which simply makes voting more difficult.”
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By this time in the 2018 primary election cycle, Harris County had received more than three times as many mail-in ballot applications and rejected 2.5% of them, the elections office said. Officials couldn't say whether the drop in applications is related to the new law. Travis County, which includes Austin, hasn’t seen a shift in the number of applications, County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir said.
When the bill was passed, Republicans said it would make elections more secure, while Democrats argued it would disenfranchise voters.
Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, disputed that mismatched ID numbers should be a problem for most Texans, saying that most have both numbers on file and adding that the Texas Department of Public Safety has been working on inputting driver’s license numbers for many voters. Mr. Taylor said there is always an adjustment period for new requirements. The law went into effect last month, creating a time crunch. He added that the state is trying to make sure eligible applications are accepted.
Most of the state’s largest counties reported rejection rates of ballots this year much higher than usual, which they attributed to the new law. Some applicants provided an ID number that is different from the one in the system, while others used old application forms rather than the ones issued after the new law. Travis County had rejected 27% of ballot applications as of Tuesday, Ms. DeBeauvoir said. Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, has rejected about 28% of applications this year, its election office said. El Paso County officials said Friday they had rejected 22% of applications, half of which would have been accepted before the change in law.
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In Collin County, outside of Dallas, Elections Administrator Bruce Sherbet said about 10% of applications had been submitted on an old application form or didn’t include an identification number that matched the file. In previous elections, he said, the rejection rate was usually 1% to 2% at most.
In South Texas’s Hidalgo County, Elections Administrator Yvonne Ramón said she had had to reject 61 applications that were submitted on old application forms, before her office had received the new ones. Mr. Taylor said all counties should have received the form the first week of December.
Write to Elizabeth Findell at [email protected]
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source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-election-law-leads-to-increase-in-rejected-mail-in-ballot-applications-11642597207
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