Local electoral authorities in Texas have rejected thousands of absentee ballots based on requirements set by the state’s new electoral law, in a worrying jump that could potentially prevent some Texans from voting in Tuesday’s primary.
The state’s Republican-Democrat primaries will be the first elections held since the Republican-led Texas legislature overhauled the state’s election laws. Election officials in the most populous counties have rejected roughly 30 percent of the absentee ballots they have received — more than 15,000 ballots — as of Wednesday, according to The New York Times survey of election data.
The ballots were rejected largely because voters either did not provide their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number, or the numbers they did not match what was on the officials’ file. New identification requirements were put in place by a voting law passed last year, known as Senate Bill 1.
The rejection rate represents a significant increase from past elections, including in 2020, when the rejection rate in the statewide general election was less than 1 percent, according to the data. Federal Election Assistance Commission data. In 2020, officials rejected 8,304 ballots in Texas out of nearly a million votes statewide. Only two counties have already exceeded that number statewide this year: Harris County and Dallas County have rejected more than 8,600 ballots as of Wednesday.
The Times has counted absentee ballot denials in 10 of 13 counties with populations over 400,000. Bexar County, where San Antonio is located, had not yet begun the ballot verification process as of Wednesday, while Tarrant County and Denton County, near Dallas, were delayed by the ice storm.
The total number of rejected ballots is still subject to change. Voters have until Election Day to submit their ballots and up to six days to correct ballot defects, depending on the circumstances of the rejection. For example, in Williamson County outside of Austin, officials initially rejected 514 absentee ballots, but 167 of them have been corrected and counted as of Tuesday.
The rise in rejections in Texas is the first sign that the deluge of new election laws passed across the country last year following the 2020 election is having an impact. On the battlefields of Florida and Georgia, Republican legislatures passed sweeping new voting laws with identification requirements for the absentee voting process that are similar to those of Texas law. Florida and Georgia will hold primaries later this year.
Guide to Texas Elementary Schools
The 2022 midterm elections will begin with the state’s primary on March 1.
Voters across Texas are flooding voter advocacy hotlines seeking advice or expressing dismay that their absentee ballots were rejected and returned after years of absentee ballots with no issues.
The Dallas County Democratic Party Headquarters received calls from voters with various issues regarding their ballots. The party is scrambling to help voters as the election deadline approaches Tuesday, including using text messages to send information about the new requirements to more than 30,000 voters in the county.
“The calls have been almost constant since the last week of January, with first confusion over the application process and then frustration over rejections,” said Christie Noble, Dallas County Democratic Chair.
However, the complications associated with absentee voting have a more limited impact in Texas than in many other states. Texas only allows mail-in voting to voters over 65 or with good cause. While more than a million Texans voted by mail in the 2020 general election, that number is expected to drop this year as turnout regularly drops in the interim.
But as mail-in voting is restricted to older people and voters with disabilities, concerns have risen that initially rejected ballots will disenfranchise voters. Guillermina Nevares lives at home in the Maverick County border area with her husband, Alfonso Nevares Sr., and her 98-year-old mother, who is disabled and recovering from recent surgery.
On all three of their ballots, they omitted the space to include their identification information, suggesting that since their voting statement had been accepted, they were free to vote.
“We didn’t look at the fine print,” said Ms. Nevares, who is also the mother of a former Democratic Party representative. “And there’s so much of it, fine print.
She corrected three ballots and mailed them back. She hopes the information is correct – due to her mother’s condition, they cannot come in person to resolve any issues.
“This is very upsetting,” Ms. Nevares said.
The Texas law also bans voting methods introduced in the 2020 election due to the pandemic, including pass-through and round-the-clock voting, and creates new barriers for those who want to help voters who need help with transfers, for example.
Gov. Greg Abbott, Republican, signed law in september. The move comes after a record turnout in the state, with 11.3 million people voting in the 2020 election, including more than nine million who voted early.
Mr. Abbott’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Previously, the governor’s administration defended the law and blamed the high absentee ballot rejection rate on local election commissions.
The Texas Secretary of State’s office said it was trying to inform voters of the new changes so that no one could return or reject the ballot.
“Over the past month, we’ve been working around the clock to spread the word across multiple channels,” Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the secretary of state, said in an email.
The state has seen abnormally high rejection rates of applications for absentee voting earlier this month as voters struggled with new identification requirements. Now, some voters who have had to correct their statements are starting to get nervous that their ballots won’t be delivered in time for Tuesday’s primary. Others choose to simply vote in person.
Nancy Bryant, 67, lives in Dallas and served as a judge in previous elections. She filled out an application and was approved, so she sent in her ballot. She learned this week that her ballot had been rejected and that county officials were going to mail it back to her for corrections.
But with the primaries fast approaching, Ms. Bryant hadn’t received her ballot as of Friday, and she’s not sure she’ll get it in time to take it to the polls on Election Day. Without her ballot, she may be forced to vote in advance. In any case, her desire to vote by absentee clashed with the reality of the new Texas law and the possibility of an in-person vote.
“If I don’t get it back on time, I’ll have to vote in advance, which hurts me deeply,” Ms Bryant said. “I am a devoted voter.”