Hypocrisy is bad, but incompetence is worse. And either unsolicited applications for mail-in ballots are threats to election integrity or they aren’t.
In recent mass mailings to Republican voters, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick urged them to apply for mail-in ballots. Patrick’s mailings included return envelopes addressed to the Texas secretary of state’s office for voters to use to submit the applications.
One problem, and it is a big one. By law, the applications are supposed to be returned to local county election offices, not the secretary of state. Patrick’s campaign had an answer for that irregularity, and that is that Republican voters don’t trust elections officials in blue counties.
Oh what a mess we weave. Patrick created an unnecessary and unauthorized stop for the applications, which ultimately have to end up in the local elections offices for review and processing, regardless of the political persuasion of election administrators.
The irony is that Patrick opposed elections offices sending unsolicited mail-in applications around the state, citing security and fraud concerns from Harris County’s plan in 2020 to send vote-by-mail applications to all 2.4 million registered voters in the county. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton successfully sued the county for violating Texas election law on grounds that mass mailing would “sow confusion” for voters.
The secretary of state’s office is forwarding the applications to the local counties. However, that takes time, and the deadline to submit a mail-in ballot application for the primaries was Friday, Feb. 18. If there is a problem with a voter’s ballot application, he or she might not have had time to fix it. If elections officials believe they can’t rectify the confusion in time then they have to notify those voters by phone or email. Then voters would have to visit the elections office in person or try online to provide the right information.
Already, the stricter voting rules have resulted in the initial rejection of hundreds of completed ballots for not meeting the state’s new identification rules requiring a driver’s license number or a partial Social Security number on the return envelopes. An ID is also required when requesting a mail-in ballot. Ballot requests and votes will be rejected if those identification numbers don’t match voter registration records.
Texas’ rules for voting by mail are stricter than the rules in other states. Mail-in voting is available only to those 65 and older, sick or disabled, out of the county on election day, expected to give birth within three weeks before or after election day, and some who are confined in jail. Now Patrick’s misdirection to his party’s own voters has added to the confusion of this election cycle. The stated goal of the GOP voting rules changes last session was to protect the integrity of the election and reduce confusion. But so far, confusion has reigned.
Dallas Morning News
