(RoyalPatriot.com )- Election officials in some Texas counties are hopping mad over Texas’ new voting law.
According to the Travis County Clerk’s office, the new election integrity law has forced them to reject about 50 percent of the applications for mail-in ballots that they have already received for the upcoming March primary elections.
In a press release last week, the Travis County Clerk said other counties are also experiencing the same high rate of rejection as they are. In San Antonio, 42 of the 80 mail-in ballot applications received so far have been rejected due to the new ID requirement.
Good. That’s good news.
The new election law requires voters to provide the same ID number (driver’s license, social security, etc.) on their mail-in ballot application that they provided when they registered to vote. But according to county election officials, some people who initially registered to vote a long time ago may not remember which ID they used when they fill out their application for a mail-in ballot. And if the ID numbers don’t match, the application must be rejected.
Naturally, those who opposed Texas’ new election law from the start are pointing to this as proof that the legislation was crafted to make it harder for eligible voters to vote.
The ACLU of Texas has maintained that the purpose of the law was to suppress certain individuals from exercising their right to vote. Tommy Buser-Clancy, a senior staff attorney with the TX ACLU said it is more important now to educate voters about what is and is not allowed under Texas’ new law.
The Travis County Clerk’s office is waiting to hear from state officials on what they should do with the rejected ballot applications. Local election officials said in a statement that currently their office doesn’t have enough information regarding the new online curing process to instruct voters on how to cure their ballot application with the Secretary of State.
In the statement, election officials said they also haven’t received instructions from the Secretary of State outlining what their office can do to assist voters in submitting a correctly-completed application.
