San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
And so begins the restricting of democracy
“A canary in the coal mine” refers to miners releasing birds ahead of them to detect the presence of carbon monoxide. If the canary died, that was evidence of a fatally toxic environment.
In these early days of the first election cycle under a new Texas voting law, the previously simple task of mailing in an application to request a ballot has become the canary released into our electoral system, showcasing how democracy can be restricted and threatened.
In some of the state’s largest counties, including Bexar, election officials are rejecting an unprecedented number of mail-in applications for ballots because they don’t meet the state’s new identification requirements. Under the new law, known as SB 1, the applications must include a driver’s license number, state ID number or, if a person does not have one of these, the last four digits of his or her Social Security number.
The data must match that on the person’s previous voting record, or the application is rejected.
But most people don’t remember the number they used when originally registering.
Texas is already severely restrictive in who can vote by mail, and this change makes it more cumbersome for those who are eligible.
Of the first 300 rejections processed in Bexar County, 80 percent were because of the new ID requirements. Another feature of this new law, which is unnecessarily complicating a procedure once routine, is that people can no longer request an application for someone other than themselves, including relatives. For example, an 85-year-old woman requesting an application for herself can’t also request one for her 88-year-old husband who lives in the same house. He must make that request.
Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacque Callanen has correctly called these new provisions “ridiculous.” We would also call them unsurprising. Critics of SB 1 predicted this type of confusion, delay and frustration for voters as the bill made its way through the 87th Texas Legislature.
The state’s new voting law is doing exactly what Texas Republicans intended: making it more burdensome for Texans to vote, specifically those Texans who may not vote for them.
Besides the changes in mail-in applications, several other canaries in SB 1 are warning us of the encroachment on voting rights.
Like voting suppression legislation from other Republican-led statehouses, SB 1 arose as a response to the lies of twice-impeached former President Donald Trump that the 2020 election was stolen from him due to widespread voter fraud. This is not true.
Some of the other provisions that restrict access to voting: The law bans overnight early voting hours and drive-thru voting; allows partisan poll watchers greater autonomy in polling places; makes it a state jail felony for local election officials to take it upon themselves to distribute mail-in ballot applications, even when given to voters who automatically qualify to vote by mail, or assist groups who are helping get out the vote.
All these changes were made in the name of “election integrity” and “election security” to protect against “voter fraud” even though voter fraud is virtually nonexistent in the country and state.
Each time Gov. Greg Abbott and Republican state legislators invoke “election integrity” to defend the changes made in how Texans vote, they imply that it was compromised in the 2020 elections.
It wasn’t. At the time, the Texas secretary of state called the elections “smooth and secure.” Republicans performed exceptionally well in Texas in 2020. SB1 is arbitrary and purely partisan.
None of this was necessary — as evidenced by the recent Trump-inspired voting audit in Harris, Dallas, Tarrant and Collin counties. An audit that found not much of anything.
The problems counties are experiencing with mail ballot applications, we fear, is the first canary in the ballot box.