Abbott’s ballot order is voter suppression
Gov. Greg Abbott framed his order limiting counties to only one location for collecting completed mail ballots as a way to enhance “ballot security protocol” and ensure COVID-19 safety measures. We need to call it what it is: Voter suppression. Clear and simple. There is, after all, no evidence of widespread mail-in ballot fraud; voting experts have repeatedly debunked that claim, as did FBI Director Christopher Wray last month. And there is no proof that shutting down dropoff sites will do anything to protect the integrity of the election. If anything, the Harris County collection sites make voting even more secure, as they require voters to deliver their own ballots, sign in, speak with an assistant clerk and provide identification.
Abbott’s order will only make it harder and riskier for vulnerable Texans — the elderly and those with underlying health conditions — to cast ballots amid the pandemic.
In Harris County, which has more than 4.7 million residents, 11 dropoff sites located at county clerk annex offices had to be shuttered under the governor’s order, which went into effect Friday, the same day voting rights groups sued in federal court to reverse it. If allowed to stand, it will force voters from all corners of the sprawling 1,777- square-mile jurisdiction to travel to the county election headquarters at NRG Arena if they want to hand-deliver their mail ballots.
In a statement, Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins accused Abbott of reneging on a July 27 proclamation designed to facilitate voting during the pandemic.
“Our office is more than willing to accommodate poll watchers at mail ballot dropoff locations,” Hollins said. “But to force hundreds of thousands of seniors and voters with disabilities to use a single dropoff location in a county that stretches over nearly 2,000 square miles is prejudicial and dangerous.”
More than 200,000 mail ballots have already been sent to Harris County voters, mostly to residents over the age of 65. Closing the dropoff sites will only sow confusion — and could discourage many voters from even casting a
ballot.
That seems to be part of the Republican strategy for winning elections, which in recent years has ranged from Attorney General Ken Paxton’s efforts to stop Harris County from sending mail ballot applications to the county’s 2.4 million registered voters to lawsuits challenging voting laws in Pennsylvania and more than a half-dozen other states filed by the Republican National Committee, the Trump campaign and other GOP groups. Those efforts follow years of effort to make it harder, rather than easier, to vote: the gutting of Section V of the Voting Rights Act and subsequent refusal to amend it, the widespread passage of voter ID laws and relentless pressure against online, mail-in and early voting innovations.
In this case, Abbott’s rationale for closing the dropoff locations is so thin as to be almost laughable. On Wednesday, Texas Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins told the state Supreme Court that his July 27 proclamation allowed voters to drop off mail ballots anytime before election day and that state law permitted county clerks to designate multiple locations to do so.
This is one mistake that Abbott shouldn’t wait for the courts to make right. He should rescind his order immediately — and pledge to do everything he can to make it easier for everyone to vote. That’s what common decency and the U.S. Constitution require. No one, not even Abbott, is above that.