A few days after her 21st birthday, Pam Gaskin’s father made the 4-hour drive from Galveston County to pick her up from the University of Texas at Austin.
And then he drove her straight back home.
Registering to vote the next day was something of a birthday gift. Gaskin, a Black woman, knew the weight of the moment — the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had been signed just three years earlier, prohibiting discriminatory voting practices in many southern states, including Texas.
She remembers her father’s words: “You will vote every time the polls open. If the only thing on the ballot is ‘dog catcher,’ you will go vote in that election.”
More than five decades later, she can count the number of elections she’s missed on one hand.
But Gaskin’s pledge was put to the test this year after a new state voting law implemented extra ID requirements for mail-in ballot requests. Republicans championed the changes last year in the name of election security, but the stipulations have also created mass confusion and a
record number of rejected applications ahead of the March primaries.
Gaskin and her husband, Michael, were denied ballots twice this month over procedural mishaps — and if she were any less determined to vote, it may have stayed that way.
“I’ve been a voting rights activist all my life, and I'm 74 years old,” said Gaskin, now a Missouri City resident. “And I have not seen anything like this. I really haven't.”
The first time, Gaskin submitted the wrong form, though she’d downloaded it from the Fort Bend County website. The new ID requirement warranted a new application, but the county hadn’t updated the document online when Gaskin grabbed it on Jan. 3.
With the new form at her fingertips, Gaskin tried again on Jan. 14. The document stated clearly: “YOU MUST PROVIDE ONE of the following numbers,” before offering space first for a driver’s license number and second for the last four digits of her Social Security number.
The second number, it said, was only necessary “if you do not have a Texas driver’s license, Texas personal identification number or a Texas election identification certificate number.” So, she filled it out using her driver’s license ID and called it a day.
On Jan. 20, Gaskin received her second denial. The rejection letter told her she hadn’t provided the same number she used when registering to vote — 46 years ago, when she moved to Fort Bend County. She called the county to ask what number was missing, but an employee told her she couldn’t say, fearing she would violate the new law.
And so Gaskin started a game of 20 questions, quizzing the elections worker on which detail was missing until she could confirm it was her social security number. (Remi Garza, the president of the Texas Association of Elections Administrators, said the worker was probably being “overcautious.”)
She filled out a third application and finally received her ballot on Monday.
Still, the incident prompted Gaskin to pen a letter to Gary Bledsoe, the head of the Texas NAACP, documenting her experience.
“I keep up with changes in the laws that affect voters and often speak to church groups and other community organizations,” she wrote. “I have NEVER experienced anything like these misguided and Jim Crow-like rules concerning voting. This is almost as bad as asking people how many jelly beans are in the jar.”
Gaskin, who has been a member of the Texas League of Women Voters for about 25 years, worries that others won’t be as persistent as she has been.
Fewer forms rejected now, officials say
Texas only allows a person to receive a mail-in ballot if they are at least 65 years old; sick or disabled; out of the county during the voting window; expecting to give birth within three weeks of Election Day; or incarcerated.
“If you are having all of these problems, you might just say, ‘Screw it, I'm just not going to do it,’” she said. “And then guess what? They don't vote. They don't participate in democracy.”
Timing is also an issue: Gaskin sent out her first application on Jan. 3 and didn’t receive her ballot until almost a full month later. The deadline to submit a correct mail-in ballot application is Feb. 18.
“What about the person that waits until the 16th of February, and their stuff is wrong?” she wonders. “Now they can't get it.”
Hundreds of other Texans have
experienced similar problems. Earlier this month, nearly half of all mail ballot applications in Fort Bend County were rejected because they didn’t meet new stipulations in the elections law.
Now, county Elections Administrator John Oldham says that number has dropped significantly. Oldham estimated that he’d rejected about four out of 100 applications he processed this weekend.
That’s partially because the county found a way around the errors, he said. If a person provides a driver’s license number that’s not in the state voter registration system, county employees can now look elsewhere to find the information and add it to their voter file.
“It's a lot more work, but it did cut down the rejections considerably,” Oldham said, adding that the Secretary of State’s office hadn’t initially informed the county of that option.
Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office, told Hearst Newspapers earlier this month that the agency is working closely with counties to answer questions and provide assistance as they work through the new ballot laws. Counties can also accept applications that include both ID numbers, he added.
And that’s exactly what Gaskin is encouraging others to do. She’s been frustrated by the process, angry over the new election law and concerned for other Texans who may not vote this year because of the barriers they’ve faced.
But now, with her ballot finally in hand, she’s also relieved — and ready to vote.
“What I’m going to do is get it out of my hands as soon as I can,” she said Monday. “These ballots will be in the mail tomorrow.”
cayla.harris@express-news.net
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