Texas was one of the first states to change its voting laws to give Republicans additional advantages, and reporting from several counties populated with Democratic voters indicates they're having the desired effect, as hundreds of requests for absentee ("mail in") ballots are being rejected:
"Election officials in one of the most populous counties in Texas have rejected about half of the applications for ballots because of the state’s new voting restrictions enacted by Republicans last year.
The clerk’s office in Travis County, the fifth-most-populous county and home to the capital of Austin, cited the law’s recent changes to identification requirements in rejecting about half of the 700 mail-in applications.
Other county clerk’s offices in the state, including those in Harris and Bexar counties, also are rejecting applications that fail to meet the new standard, or in which information doesn’t match the voter data on record." (our emphasis)
Justifying their changes on claims of non-existent "voter fraud," Texas' Republican-dominated legislature and Republican Governor, the malign right-winger Greg Abbott, passed the voting restrictions law last September that was intended to restrict voting hours, use of absentee ballots, and other changes that will impact Democratic and independent voters more significantly. In November, the Justice Department filed a Federal lawsuit against Texas over the discriminatory voting restrictions, which impacts not only the Democratic and independent demographic, but also people with disabilities.
(photo: "No" to fair elections on my watch. Juan Figueroa / Dallas Morning News)
