SAN ANTONIO (KABB/WOAI) - With the March primary election just weeks away, a new state law is changing the process for how some people vote.
"We need it to be less difficult to have our civic involvement accessible to us," says San Antonio voter Edna Molina. "We need it as simple as possible."
Molina is one of nearly a million Texans who voted by mail during the 2020 election.
She's 79-years-old and says she struggles navigating computers and has had a ballot mailed to her the last few years.
Her brother currently in her care who has Down Syndrome, has also voted by mail for years, but now county election offices in Texas can no longer send you an application to vote by mail unless you request it.
"Now for him to request a form to apply for a mail-in ballot is just one more layer of putting people off," says Molina.
The changes come as a result of new state election laws signed last year in an effort to deter what Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton calls voter fraud.
"Sometimes voters receive that application from a political party or an organization or something like that, but if you don’t, you better request it because they’re not going to get it any other way," says Grace Chimene with the non-partisan group Texas League of Women Voters.
Chimene says senior citizens or people with disabilities might be confused by the new law.
According to the Texas Tribune so far Bexar county election officials say they've rejected 200 applications to vote by mail because the voter I.D. section wasn't filled out or other mistakes were made on the application.
New rules indicate you have to include a driver's license number, personal identification number or election registration number.
That's a concern for Amy Litzinger, who has trouble writing because her quadriplegia.
In the past she was able to bubble in her application.
"I’m not eligible for assistance because I can technically read and write or if I can’t find anybody to assist me," says Litzinger. "Then their interpretation of my handwriting of the numbers is going to be misinterpreted."
The deadline to register to vote by mail is February 18.
The application can be found
here.
Read more