Does your vote count? Probably. Maybe. If you got the paperwork right. And if it didn’t count this time, we’ll make sure it does next time.
That seems to be the message to many Texas voters — Republicans and Democrats alike — after more than 27,000 mail-in ballots were rejected in 120 counties for the March 1 primary, according to reporting by The Associated Press. Though many of those rejections may yet be remedied, early returns put the rejection rate among mail voters at about 17%, dramatically higher than in the 2020 general election, when fewer than 1% of mail-in ballots were rejected statewide, according to The AP.
To put it simply, that’s unacceptable.
Updates to Texas election law passed last year were supposed to make it “easier to vote and harder to cheat.” That’s what we kept hearing from Republican supporters of the reforms. But apparently, the new voter ID provision for mail-in ballots has failed in at least half that charge. There are 27,000 reasons to think it’s now harder to vote in Texas, particularly for seniors and disabled Texans.
One frustrated voter, Pamiel Gaskin, 75, of Houston, told The AP: “It took me three tries and 28 days, but I got my ballot and I voted.”
We supported some of the voting reforms, and we are generally in favor of common-sense measures to verify voter identity and to scrap outdated practices like signature matching. But a plan is only as good as its execution, and the execution here flopped.
Most of the rejected ballots appear to be the result of confusion over procedure. Do I put my ID number on the ballot application or the envelope carrying the actual ballot? Do I use my driver’s license number or Social Security number? Voters were unsure because the changes were poorly executed, with too many confusing messages, and no adequate statewide education campaign to prepare voters.
Meanwhile, some county elections administrators feared that voter outreach efforts would get them in trouble under the new law. They pointed to a new provision banning those officials from “soliciting” mail ballots from people who haven’t requested them.
Elections officials, including Texas Secretary of State John Scott, say the rejection rate should drop in future elections, once the changes have had time to shake out. But “this will sort itself out” isn’t very reassuring to voters like Gaskin.
Voting is sacrosanct. Americans get understandably upset when they get the feeling that someone is erecting barriers to exercising that right. Texas already has problems with low turnout, especially in primary elections. This news will only reinforce the creeping suspicion among voters that their vote doesn’t count.
Scott and his office must work with county election officials to fix this mess right away.
Dallas Morning News
