More than 12% of mail-in ballots were rejected in Texas under new GOP voting rules, final tally show

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The Texas voter suppression law worked as intended.

Link to tweet

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/04/06/texas-mail-in-ballot-rejection-voting/?utm_campaign=trib-social&utm_content=1649270922&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

The votes of more than 24,000 Texans who tried to cast ballots by mail were thrown out in the March primary — a dramatic increase in rejected ballots in the first election held under a new Republican voting law.

Roughly 12.4% of mail-in ballots returned to the state’s 254 counties were not counted, according to figures released Wednesday by the Texas secretary of state. Just over 3 million people voted overall in the low-turnout primary.

Of 24,636 rejected mail-in ballots, 14,281 belonged to voters attempting to participate in the Democratic primary, and 10,355 belonged to voters in the Republican primary. But the rejection rate by party was fairly aligned; 12.9% of Democratic ballots were rejected and 11.8% of Republican ballots were rejected.

Put another way, 1 in every 8 mail-in voters lost their votes in their primary. The rate amounts to a significant surge in rejections compared with previous years, including the higher-turnout 2020 presidential election, when less than 1% of ballots were tossed.

Data previously collected by The Texas Tribune found rejection rates ranging from 6% to nearly 22% in 16 of the state’s 20 counties with the most registered voters, which overall rejected 18,742 mail-in ballots. In most cases, county officials said, ballots were rejected for failing to meet new, stricter ID requirements enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature last year that require voters to provide their driver’s license number or a partial Social Security number to vote by mail.

[Demovictory9]

1. the plan is working

[Hoyt]

2. Fortunately, rejections were roughly equal between parties. And

those who had ballots rejected need to pay attention to instructions.

It ain’t that hard folks.

[abqtommy]

3. I read earlier today here on DU* that rejected reTHUG ballots were entered into the

system by hand. There needs to be some serious investigation on all this.

* https://www.democraticunderground.com/107860760

[Dallas County Republican mail-in ballots were 'hand duplicated,' Democratic election judge reports.]

[modrepub]

4. And That's Why I Went Into Vole Last Time

Because there's more that can go wrong as far as instructions go. There were (Democratic) counties in my state where county election officials did all they could to make sure mail-in ballots were filled in properly. Republicans in the Legislature cried foul and wanted any ballot where voters were helped purged.

You want to make mail in more available? Then make sure the the number of voting machines (and number of voting places) are even across a state. If folks in high population areas have to wait a couple of hours to vote than folks in the sticks sure can afford to drive half an hour to vote (and possibly wait hours to fill out a ballot). I'm positive the rural Republican counties in my state have far more voting machine and polling sites per capita than more urban areas.