Know your rights
If you need to vote by mail this fall, Paxton can’t stop you — and the law is on your side.
Texas officials continue to do everything they can to keep Texans from voting by mail this fall.
Our elected leaders should be working overtime to make voting as easy as possible for every eligible voter, including anyone who worries voting in person is too dangerous amid the coronavirus pandemic. When Harris County officials tried to do the right thing, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton promptly sued to stop it.
Luckily, though, the law is on voters’ side, even if the attorney general isn’t.
The Texas Supreme Court spoke on this issue in May, and while it did not find support in state law for declaring a blanket eligibility for all voters to request mail-in ballots due to the pandemic, the justices did make clear that current law leaves it up to each voter to decide whether their health concerns make them eligible for mail-in voting.
Yes, it was clear in May, and in an interview this month with the editorial board, Texas Chief Justice Nathan Hecht said so again.
“The statute leaves this decision up to the individual,” Hecht said. “You can’t ask them. There is no form they have to fill out, they don’t have to swear to it, don’t have to sign anything; all they have to do is say, ‘I want (a mail-in ballot) because in my view I need one.’”
That’s not just the law, the chief justice said, it’s also the position the state took in court.
As such, Harris County voting officials have emphasized they will not secondguess any voter who requests to vote by mail. To help make requesting those ballots easier, Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins is readying to send mail-in ballot request forms to all 2.4 million registered Harris County voters.
That’s smart. So, naturally, state elections officials are fighting like mad to stop it. Last week, Texas Elections Director Keith Ingram called on Hollins to halt his plan and threatened “appropriate steps” if he declined. On Monday, Paxton filed suit.
Ingram called Hollins’ actions an “abuse of voters’ rights” and claimed it would lead to people voting by mail when they do not qualify to do so.
“By sending applications to all voters, including many who do not qualify for voting by mail, your office may cause voters to provide false information on the form,” Ingram wrote. “Your action thus raises serious concerns under Texas Election Code.”
Paxton’s lawsuit argues that Hollins’ actions will create confusion and facilitate fraud and that they exceed his statutory authority.
Ridiculous. Getting a ballot request form in the mail doesn’t force any voter to use it. Elections experts note there is nothing in the law that precludes the county clerk from sending out applications to all voters.
Hollins said his office has explained to state officials that sending the applications to voters will provide clarity about their rights and let them know that officials will follow the law and respect voters’ right to request a mail ballot if they believe they need one. His office has also reached out several times to the secretary of state to share plans about the mailings, Hollins said, but he hadn’t heard back, until the letter sent last week containing litigation threats.
“The purpose is to educate voters so they’re making correct decisions for themselves,” Hollins told the editorial board. “To threaten action without having a conversation seems wrong to us.” It seems that way to us, too. Paxton’s suit argues that regardless of whether Hollins attempts to explain voteby-mail criteria, “it is inevitable that voters who receive applications from a public official with the imprimatur of state authority will wrongly assume they are eligible.”
It’s true that the Supreme Court’s decision left the issue without the clarity it required. Hecht’s Democratic opponent, Austin district Judge Amy Meachum, pressed him on just that point in the candidate-screening interview with the editorial board. But Hecht stressed that just because the court declined to rule that state law automatically made everyone eligible to vote by mail during a pandemic doesn’t change the fact that those voters who decide for themselves it’s too dangerous to vote in person are free to make that decision without second-guessing by state officials.
“The position in court that the state took,” Hecht explained, was that if a voter goes in and requests a mail ballot, “then they can’t ask you, ‘Well is something really wrong with you?’ And so that is what people are doing.”
At least they are trying to. Paxton and other state officials would do well to read the law again and stop trying to intimidate voters and local officials who recognize that concerns about keeping away from crowds during a pandemic are deadly serious.