Early voting in Texas begins today through Friday, November 4, 2022. The general election is November 8th. By all means, research your ballot. Compliments of Laura Yeager, here is a nonpartisan research page that provides you with great information on candidates' positions on public education so that you can be an informed voter. She also provides great information on who the elected leaders are in our state who make education-related decisions. Thanks, Laura, for your dedication and hard work on this.
The piece below should affirm, above all else, the need for every person in our state to get out and vote as members of a democracy, particularly since democracy itself is on the ballot.
-Angela Valenzuela
Minority voters 50% more likely to have ballots rejected under new Texas voting law, study finds
The state's new mail voting requirements caused nearly 25,000 ballots to be rejected in the March primaries.
WASHINGTON — Voters of color were 50 percent more likely than white voters to have mail ballots rejected under a new Texas law that restricted voting by mail, according to a new study detailing "massive disenfranchisement" under the law.
VOTING HEADACHE: For a Texas family, voting by mail meant 5 applications, 3 different outcomes and a 5-week wait
The law — passed by Texas Republicans in 2021 in the name of election integrity — requires absentee voters to include either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number on the ballot. The number has to match what the voter put on their registration form, but advocates say many voters forget which number is on file or overlook it on their ballots.
The requirement caused nearly 25,000 ballots and 12,000 applications for them to be rejected in the March primaries. The rejection rate was 12.4 percent statewide, with a slightly more pronounced rate in Democratic primaries, at 12.9 percent compared with 11.8 percent of Republican ballots, according to figures from the Texas Secretary of State.
An analysis of those rejections by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice found Latino, Asian and Black voters were significantly more likely to have both applications and ballots rejected under the new requirement.
EARLIER THIS YEAR: Texas woman recounts her mail ballot hassle
The study found that Asian-American voters had either their applications or ballots rejected at a rate of 19 percent. The rejection rate among Black voters was nearly 17 percent, and it was 16 percent for Latino voters. The rejection rate for white voters was less than 12 percent.
The racial disparities were larger for ballot rejections than application rejections. Voters of color were at least 47 percent more likely than white voters to have their ballots rejected. Asian-American and Latino voters were each more than 50 percent more likely to have a ballot rejected than white voters.
According to the study, more than 15 percent of Asian-American voters had mail ballots rejected. Nearly 15 percent of Latino voters and nearly 14 percent of Black voters had ballots turned down. Just more than 9 percent of white voters saw their ballots rejected.
"Texas’s S.B. 1 is a prime example of the anti-voter legislation sweeping the nation," the study says. "This analysis makes clear that just one of its many provisions is already causing serious problems in election administration, disenfranchising significant numbers of Americans — especially people of color."
KNOW THE CANDIDATES: Houston Chronicle Voter Guide / San Antonio Express-News Voter Guide
Texas was one of several GOP states that pushed new restrictions after the 2020 elections, when former President Donald Trump falsely claimed widespread fraud cost him the election, due in large part to an increase in mail-in voting.
Republican lawmakers who supported the legislation have said voters’ troubles are part of a normal learning curve that will eventually improve over time with education. They have said the new rules were needed to bolster election integrity, though Attorney General Ken Paxton's staff spent 20,000 hours looking for voter fraud last year, focusing on the 2020 elections, and didn't uncover anything beyond isolated incidents affecting a handful of votes in an election in which more than 11 million Texans cast ballots.
The law sparked legal challenges, including by the U.S. Department of Justice, and failed attempts by Democrats in Congress to pass new national voting rights legislation. The Brennan Center has also challenged the law in court.
Texas has among the strictest mail voting laws in the nation. It is one of just 15 states that requires an excuse to vote by mail, and state leaders have resisted changes to make the process easier that have been adopted elsewhere, including allowing voters to apply for mail ballots online and sending ballots to all voters.
ben.wermund@chron.com
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