Opinion: Republicans engineered a democratic disaster in Texas

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The Texas GOP did a good job of suppressing Democratic votes during the March 1 primary

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It’s a safe bet that Texans who voted by mail in the March 1 primary didn’t think state election officials would receive the ballots but then promptly toss them out. But that is exactly what happened to thousands of voters under the controversial state law that created new identification requirements. These would-be voters are among the first victims of the Republican Party’s campaign to restrict voting, the scandalous consequences of which are only now becoming visible.

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A Texas Tribune review found that Texas election officials rejected 18,742 mail-in ballots cast in 16 of the state’s 20 counties with the most registered voters. That translates into rejection rates from 6 percent to nearly 22 percent. An Associated Press survey found a 13 percent rejection rate across 187 Texas counties, concluding that the state trashed nearly 23,000 ballots. A rejection rate of more than 2 percent is generally considered high. Texas scrapped less than 1 percent of absentee ballots in 2020.

The Tribune found that the predominant issue was absentee voters’ failure to comply with strict new mail-in ballot voter-ID laws, which state negligence and technical problems made nearly impossible for many to meet. Perhaps these numbers will plummet as more people get used to the new rules. More likely, mail-in ballot users — many of them elderly or people with disabilities — will continue to struggle.....

It surely dawned on Republican state lawmakers that they also stood to benefit politically. True, new restrictions hit both Republican and Democratic voters to some extent, but disproportionately the latter. The Associated Press found that the rejection rate in Democratic-leaning counties in Texas was 15.1 percent — and 9.1 percent in Republican-leaning ones. Mr. Trump carried Texas in 2020 by a narrower margin than the state’s voting history might have led one to expect. Complex, unnecessary voting rules might help Republicans maintain their grip on the state, regardless of what voters actually think.

[MagickMuffin]

1. It had the outcome it was intended to do, SUPPRESS the Democratic votes

It was designed to suppress the vote.


I cry for my state and country.

[Bettie]

2. Why do I expect that the

rules were applied differently in blue versus red areas?

[SoonerPride]

3. Because they did

And it is by design

[Bettie]

4. I figured as much

My guess is that they check names against primary registries to ensure that they only suppress those who are registered as Democrats.

And yes, I do believe they are that corrupt.

[CrispyQ]

5. I believe that, too.

Maybe we need to get rid of party affiliation? IDK. My husband is unaffiliated. He gets calls/mail/solicitors from both parties. For the primary, because I'm a registered dem, I get the democratic ballot mailed to me. Because he's unaffiliated, he gets both the dem ballot & the repub ballot, but he's only allowed to vote one ballot.

The GOP have zero scruples & zero shame. I have absolutely no doubt they would use party information to their advantage.