As Texas’ first-in-the-nation primary on March 1 approaches, election administrators and voters are struggling to follow its provisions, many of which make it harder to vote.
The state secretary of state’s office has been
unable or unwilling to provide the counties with adequate resources and information, and one new ID requirement in particular has helped send unprecedented numbers of ballots and applications into the reject pile.
Older and disabled voters, some of the few that get to vote by mail in Texas, have borne the brunt of the chaos, said Grace Chimene, president of the League of Women Voters of Texas.
“They’re consistent voters,” she told TPM. “They’re very upset that after all these years of voting, suddenly now their ballots and applications are being rejected.”
The omnibus elections law, signed in September over Democratic objection and a highly publicized
walkout, requires that voters put down an ID number on applications for mail-in ballots and the ballots themselves.
The number, options for which include a driver’s license number and the last four digits of a social security number, must match whatever number the voters put on their registration form — requiring older voters to remember which number they used in some cases decades ago. If they’re old enough, some voters may not have had to provide any ID at all when they first registered.
If the number is missing, or a mismatch, election administrators have to try to reach the voter to fix the mistake and get the ballot or application back in again before the deadline. That requires manpower some counties just don’t have. And even in the bigger, more well-staffed county offices, the administrators have to reach more people.
The law only went into effect on December 2, leaving a very constrained timeline for administrators to learn the new rules and communicate them to voters.
“It is one thing to create new laws and another to implement them,” Leah Shah, director of communications and voter outreach in Harris County, told TPM. “Implementing new laws so soon before a primary has caused a lot of administrative challenges. And it has not allowed for counties or the state to educate voters about these changes — a combination of challenges that has resulted in a lack of understanding and general public misinformation.”
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