Minority voters 50% more likely to have ballots rejected under new Texas voting law, study finds

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.

by Benjamin Wermund | Oct. 20, 2022 | San Antonio Express-News

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

This piece is chock-full of important information related to redistricting in Texas, beginning with the cry to end gerrymandering such as what happened to Travis county after the 2010 census.  Instead of being the strong Democratic county that it ought to be, it was fragmented into five congressional districts, with only one of these being Democratic.  That does not represent our city or county that tends to be more liberal than conservative, thusly diluting our vote.

To support representative Democracy, still a very good idea, we all need to get involved in the next legislative session that will be dominated by the redrawing of political lines.  In anticipation of that, we need to make sure that everyone is counted in the U.S. Census.

Texas has grown by an more than 5 million people since the last Census count in 2010 such that our state will grow in Congressional strength, adding at least three more seats for our state—from 36-39.  almost 30 million when the next census is taken, up from 25.1 million people counted in 2010.

Texas currently has 36 seats in the U.S. House, but population growth is expected to add at least three congressional districts for the state. 

According to another piece authored by Alexi McCammond that I just posted titled, The first-time Latino voters, "The 2020 election marks the first time in history that Latinos will be the largest minority ethnic or racial group in the electorate, with 32 million eligible voters."

For the sake of our communities, let's all register to vote and then let's actually vote.  

Here's your to-do list from my dear friend, Laura Yeager, with Texas Educators Vote:

To do:

1.     Register to vote.

2.     Invite your friends and family to register to vote.

3.     Like us on Facebook and Twitter for helpful voting                  articles and info.

4.     Sign up for election text reminders by texting TxEdVote          to  40649.

5.     Bookmark the Texas Educators Vote website for all the          above info!  

Sí se puede!  Yes we can!

-Angela Valenzuela

Texans decry fragmented political districts

Chuck Lindell, Sep 10, 2019 

 Austin American-Statesman

The touchy process of redrawing political districts based on the upcoming census opened Tuesday with a Capitol hearing that produced frequent pleas to end gerrymandering, particularly from residents of an intentionally fragmented Travis County.

Many Austin-area residents who testified before the House Redistricting Committee condemned the map, drawn after the 2010 census, that broke the strongly Democratic county into five far-flung congressional districts, four of which are represented by Republicans.

The result, several said, has been artificially split communities, diluted political clout, created apathy in voters and focused representatives on other parts of the state, not Austin.

Robyn Honig held up a photo of her husband standing in the middle of the street in front of their Northwest Austin home, each foot in a different congressional district.

“Do the three congressional districts shattering my neighborhood keep with the spirit of representative democracy, or were they drawn in the spirit of something else?” Honig told the committee. “It’s time for all of y’all to put an end to this nonsense.”

Matt Miller asked that the next congressional map, to be drawn during the 2021 legislative session, include a district that allows most of Austin to be represented by one U.S. House member.

Residents of San Marcos, Kyle, Buda, Killeen and the Hill Country also reminded committee members that the district maps divided their communities as well.

Tuesday’s hearing was the first of 28 that the committee, with eight Republicans and seven Democrats, plans to hold across Texas, with more likely to be scheduled, said Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, chairman of the committee.

A second redistricting hearing will be scheduled next year in Austin, King said.

Redrawing political lines, always a time consuming and highly political process, will dominate the next 140-day regular session of the Legislature.

Redistricting committee members will be pulled in multiple, sometimes conflicting directions — pressured by incumbents who want safe districts, political insiders who want certain politicians elected or defeated, and party officials who want to maximize the number of seats earmarked for the majority party.

The political party in charge essentially draws the political maps that will be used in the coming decade for the Texas House and Senate, the U.S. House and the State Board of Education.

Right now, Republicans hold a 19-12 advantage in the Texas Senate, with little opportunity for major changes in the upcoming election. In the 150-member House, however, Democrats could become the majority party by flipping nine GOP-held seats.

With command over redistricting as the prize, the 2020 elections will be hotly contested because the party in power at the start of a decade can reap long-term rewards:

• Using GOP-drawn maps for Congress in 2018, Republican candidates received 50.4% of the votes cast in Texas but won 63% of the seats, according to the League of Women Voters.

• Texas Democrats running for Congress in 1992, when their party drew the maps, got half of the votes cast but won 70% of the seats.

Those redrawing the lines also know that federal judges will be reviewing their work.

Courts have cracked down on Texas-drawn maps every decade since the 1960s for violating the Voting Rights Act’s restrictions on diluting minority voting strength and gerrymandering along racial grounds.

What won’t be available in the future, thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June, will be legal challenges based on maps that confer an outsized electoral advantage to the political party in charge. The propriety of political gerrymandering is a political question that does not belong in the federal courts, that ruling said.

At Tuesday’s hearing, many of the speakers pressed for the creation of a nonpartisan commission to draw political boundaries, arguing that politicians had an unacceptable conflict of interest in drawing their own districts.

King said, however, that several bills to create such a commission failed to gain support in the session that ended in May, leaving no time to change the process when the Legislature next meets.

The committee also heard from Lloyd Potter, director of the Texas Demographic Center, who said Texas is expected to have a population of almost 30 million when the next census is taken, up from 25.1 million people counted in 2010.

Texas currently has 36 seats in the U.S. House, but population growth is expected to add at least three congressional districts for the state when the 435 House seats are officially apportioned Dec. 31, 2020, Potter said.

Give the gift of voting by Laura Yeager with #TxEdVote

Voting is a right and a responsibility, just like activism and cultivating the skills of civic engagement in a democracy.  

It is also a gift, as Laura Yeager with Texas Educators Vote, says.

-Angela Valenzuela

Give the gift of voting                                     December 11, 2019

This time of year, people are searching for the perfect gift for those near and dear to them. Look no further. The gift of civic engagement is easy to share, will reap rewards for years to come, and will bring the giver deep satisfaction as well. Studies show that voting is good for your health, for the health of the community, and it doesn’t cost a thing. In a world that seems out of control, exercising your right to vote is an empowering experience. So, lead by example and show your friends, family, and coworkers how easy it is to be civically engaged. Schedule time together throughout the year to register (or check your voter registration status), research what will be on your ballot when it is close to election time, and then go to the polls and vote together. Plan it now and schedule a series of fun get-togethers. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

To do:

1.     Register to vote.

2.     Invite your friends and family to register to vote.

3.     Like us on Facebook and Twitter for helpful voting articles and info.

4.     Sign up for election text reminders by texting TxEdVote to 40649.

5.     Bookmark the Texas Educators Vote website for all the above info!  

Social Media Posts to share:

“Give the gift of civic engagement. Lead by example!” #txed #txlege #vote #TxEdVote

“Schedule time with loved ones to register, research, and vote.” #txed #txlege #vote #TxEdVote

Thank you,

Laura Yeager

Texas Educators Vote

Attachments area

Friends,

Wrap  your heads around this: Texas has about 11.4 million Hispanic residents as compared with 11.9 million whites.  

These trends and numbers are astounding given the disparities we continue to see today with respect to Hispanic representation in our flagship institutions, legislative, school board, and city council representation, the teacher workforce, and white collar occupations and industries, as a whole.   So much of this does connect to the vote as this piece suggests, but any close reading of Texas history shows that it's deeper than that.  Much deeper.

Consider for instance, an underlying dynamic that journalist, Michelle Garcia, identifies in her recent CNN Opinion piece posted to this blog titled "In Texas, A call to action against white supremacy."

"Attacking Latinos is deeply woven into the genetic coding of the state that was built on the perception that some are more worthy to govern than others."

So the "problem" isn't simply reducible to Hispanics not voting when everything has been done legally and extralegally to curtail it.  That said, we can expect the seemingly unending forms of discrimination, prejudice, and exclusion that we're witnessing in full view today bodes positively for Hispanic voter turnout in 2020 where according to estimates by the Pew Research Center (cited by Garcia), "Latinos are projected to be the largest non-white voting group in 2020."

Accordingly, please note the following pertinent info provided by Laura Yeager  of Texas Educators Vote:

The deadline to register to vote in the November 5^th election is October 7^th.  There will be 10 constitutional amendments on the ballot and special legislative elections will be held that day also. Creating a culture of voting means voting in every election.  Make sure everyone you know is registered to vote!

To do:1. Check your voter registration status.  https://teamrv-mvp.sos.texas.gov/MVP/mvp.do2. Apply to register to vote if you are not already registered. https://webservices.sos.state.tx.us/vrapp/index.asp3. If you don’t have a printer, stamp, or want to look up your county election office, go to Register2Vote and get a completed voter registration application sent to you to sign and put in the mail. This saves you some steps, but takes a little extra time, so do it today! https://register2vote.org/Social Media Posts to share: -Make sure you are registered to vote. Deadline to register for the Nov. 5 constitutional amendment election is Oct. 7^th. #txed #txlege #vote #TxEdVote -Vote in every election. Make sure you are registered today! #txed #txlege #vote #TxEdVote

-Angela Valenzuela

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Texas Hispanics Edge Closer to Becoming the State’s Biggest Ethnic Group

STEPHEN YOUNG | JUNE 21, 2019 | 4:00AM

Texas' white plurality is this close to being over, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Any day now, it seems, the state is set to become majority Hispanic.

According to the bureau's 2018 population estimates, Texas has about 11.9 million white, non-Hispanic residents, compared with 11.4 million self-identified Hispanic residents. In 2010, the earliest year for which data is provided in the Census report, there were 9.5 million Hispanics living in Texas, compared with 11.4 million non-Hispanic whites.

While Hispanic population growth has easily outpaced white population growth from 2010 to 2018, the differences in growth over the last year are even starker. Texas' white population grew by about 24,000 residents in 2018. Its Hispanic population grew by almost 215,000.

Texas Hispanics' population growth has not been mirrored at the ballot box. According to Census Bureau data released earlier this year, about 1.9 million Hispanics voted in Texas' 2018 election, an increase of more than 800,000 from the state's previous midterm in 2014. That might sound like a big jump, but given that Texas' total turnout went up from under five million to more than eight million, Hispanic voters' relative electoral impact went up only about two percentage points, from about 23% of the electorate to about 25%.

White Texans are still over-represented at the ballot box, which is reflected in the policies pursued by Texas Republicans like Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

"Basically, I think you can contrast the Dan Patrick versus (former Texas Gov.) Rick Perry approach," Rice University political scientist Mark Jones told the Observer in 2018 in an interview about Hispanic political power in Texas and when it might flip the state. "If all Republicans were like Rick Perry, you wouldn't have a significant disconnect between obtaining a significant percentage of the Latino vote and the policies pursued by Republican officeholders. Perry was always very astute in avoiding issues that would've damaged his standing and that of the Republican Party among Latinos who otherwise would be favorably disposed to vote for Republicans. He always focused on border security. He never focused on anything that would've involved the deportation of Latinos already in the country."

With Perry out of office and President Donald Trump in the White House, Texas Republicans have become more extreme on immigration issues. During the 2017 legislative session, Texas lawmakers famously passed Senate Bill 4, the state's "sanctuary cities" law, which threatened local elected officials with being removed from office if they failed to comply with orders from federal immigration enforcement officers. This year, Texas Senate Republicans forced through a ceremonial but controversial resolution affirming Trump's claims that there is a crisis at Texas' Mexican border.

Republicans' continued focus on the border and demonization of immigrants is already having an effect on Texas' Latino electorate, according to activists.

"With the Latino community, it's always very interesting because there's a segment that's been loyal to the Republican Party specifically because of the abortion issue," Carlos Duarte, the Texas director of Mi Familia Vota, a group that supports civic engagement among Latinos, told the Observer just before the election in November. "People would say, 'I'm conflicted because, on the one side, I want to vote for Democrats because of their positions on immigration, but on the other, I want to vote for my soul and therefore vote Republican because of the abortion issue.'

"This year, what I am seeing is that people are fed up, particularly with President Trump, and I have had several conversations where people are saying, 'I used to be a Republican, I've been a Republican all of my life, my family has been Republican, but we cannot take this anymore and now me and my family are going to vote Democrat.'"

In 2018, 64% of Hispanic voters in Texas said they cast their ballot for Democrat Beto O'Rourke, according to Pew Research, compared with the 47% who voted for Democrat David Alameel against John Cornyn in 2014. White turnout saved Republican Ted Cruz, but there's a chance Republicans are mortgaging their future for marginal short-term gains.

"I think (Gov. Greg) Abbott still wants to try to occupy ground that is similar, if a little bit to the right, of where Rick Perry was," Jones said last year, suggesting the governor might moderate after Trump leaves office. "It's not clear at all to me that Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton are interested in doing that. I think they still have a much more short-term vision that's focused on Republican primary voters. They seem much less concerned about the future of the party. They're much more focused on winning in 2018 and perhaps winning the Republican primary in 2022 for whatever office that might be, but they're unconcerned about where the party will go in the 2020s." 

 

Stephen Young has written about Dallas news for the Observer since 2014. He's a Dallas native and a graduate of the University of North Texas.

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