Hundreds of mail ballot requests denied
New Texas law requiring ID information is blamed for a record number of rejections
County officials in urban areas across the state say they've been forced to reject an unprecedented number of mail ballot applications because they do not adhere to new requirements stipulated by the election bill passed last year by the Legislature's Republican majority.
The new law, which Democrats decried as an attempt to suppress the votes of minority groups, requires mail voters to give their driver’s license number or state ID number. In the absence of those, they can provide the last four digits of their Social Security number or indicate they do not have the required IDs.
The problem some counties are running into — one that critics of the bill had warned lawmakers about last year — is that the number provided by the voter must match with what the county has on file, typically the one used to register to vote. And an online portal run by the state, per the new law, to allow voters to check on their applications, has had a bumpy rollout in the Secretary of State’s Office.
“We have never had to reject applications for ballot by mail in this number,” said Jacque Callanen, Bexar County elections administrator.
“(Voters) expect the next thing they’re going to get from us is the actual ballot to vote on and mail back. Now all the sudden they’re receiving a letter from us that says, “Ehh, we need you to fill out this other information before we can process your ballot.’ … That’s frustrating for them; it’s frustrating for us.”
As of the latest tally on Wednesday, the county had rejected 325 applications. Callanen said she plans to hire two temporary workers to deal with this issue alone.
In Harris County, officials say they’ve so far had to reject about 208 applications out of more than 1,000 applications received so far for the same reasons.
In both counties, most of the rejected applications were lacking any ID information from the voter.
There is time to fix the problems ahead of the primaries: The state’s deadline for mail ballot applications is Feb. 18. Election day is March 1.
So far, Harris County is seeing
fewer applications than usual for this time of year, but that could be related to political campaigns and parties had to wait for redistricting before mailing out applications, county spokeswoman Leah Shah said. Under the new voting law, counties are not allowed to mail out ballot applications, as many had in the past, unless a voter requests one.
For comparison’s sake, during the same time period ahead of the last midterm election in 2018, the county received nearly 5,000 applications and rejected about 100.
“We are seeing a 700-percent increase in the percentage of rejected mail-in ballot applications, which certainly raises a red flag for our office,” elections administrator Isabel Longoria said. “What we're seeing here is a direct byproduct of SB1, which simply makes voting more difficult.”
The problem was even more pronounced in Travis County, where officials said that as of Thursday they’d rejected about half of the about 700 applications they’d received, most because of the new ID requirement.
“A lot of the administrators in the state saw potential for this to be a challenge for voters to successfully submit applications,” said Remi Garza, president of the Texas Association of Elections Administrators. “We did our best to communicate that to the policymakers — had they heeded our advice and perhaps phased this process in or allowed for applications to be processed and not immediately rejected, I think it would have been easier for voters to access the ballot-by-mail process.”
Warning comes true
Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, who authored Senate Bill 1, the new voting bill, has said that the purpose of the legislation was to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat. Hughes did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
Rep. Jessica González, D-Dallas, vice chair of the Texas House Elections Committee, said this was exactly the effect Democrats had repeatedly tried to warn Republicans this bill would have.
“The March primary is quickly approaching, and I worry for senior and rural Democratic and Republican voters that may not have access to their ballot due to these new requirements,” González said. “As elected officials, our goal should be to expand voter access, not make voting more complicated and difficult.”
It’s the kind of matter that González and eight of her Democratic colleagues said they’d like to raise with Secretary of State John B. Scott, whom Gov. Greg Abbott appointed in October. In a letter they sent Friday, the Democrats said they’d also like to discuss the office’s audit of the 2020 election; the first phase’s results released last month yielded no proof of widespread fraud.
Abbott’s last two appointees, Ruth Hughs and David Whitley, failed to receive confirmation by the Texas Senate Nominations Committee. Whitley resigned after losing confidence from legislators with a botched voter purge in which thousands of legal voters were targeted.
In a hearing last year, the state’s director of elections under Hughs during invited testimony pronounced Texas’ 2020 election as “smooth and secure.” Some lawmakers say that testimony led the Republican-led Senate to oust her by declining to hold a vote to confirm her appointment.
County blamed
Texas has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country, and among those are its limitations on who can vote absentee. Even during the pandemic as some Republican states moved to temporarily expand vote-by-mail access, Texas was one of seven in the country where an excuse other than risk of infection was still needed.
To qualify, the Texas Election Code requires voters to be 65 or older, disabled, in jail or out of their home county during the voting period.
The Secretary of State’s office in a statement on Friday said the office was “surprised to learn for the first time of the apparent wholesale rejection of mail ballot applications by Travis County” and called on the county to re-examine the rejected applications.
“We urge all county election officials to contact the Texas Secretary of State's office to seek advice and assistance on the correct method of processing mail ballot applications,” said spokesman Sam Taylor.
On Twitter, the office showed less patience with county officials: “Always, you can pick up the phone and call our office instead of calling a press conference. Much more time efficient,” responding to Travis County, which is set to hold one on Tuesday.
It was not clear what the office expected the counties to do differently, however, and the office did not respond to repeated requests for clarification.
“I don’t know what other options the Secretary of State’s office thinks are available,” Garza said. “I don’t want to challenge what the Secretary of State’s office thinks should be happening, but I think if they were sitting in our chairs, I think our hands are tied.”
The new election law also included a process for voters to correct such issues with their mail ballot applications, one that voters are supposed to be able to stay on top of via an online ballot tracker. Yet some election officials say they haven’t been told how to upload information to the web application.
A spokesman told KUT on Friday that guidance was forthcoming within days on how to use the online ballot tracker.