Texas election officials have rejected hundreds of mail-in ballot applications, abiding by a new Republican-backed law just weeks before a March 1 primary kicks off this year’s U.S. election cycle.
“My friends, this is what voter suppression looks like,” Democrat Dana DeBeauvoir, the Travis County clerk, told reporters on Tuesday.
The county, home to the state capital Austin, invalidated approximately 300 applications because people failed to meet the law’s stricter identification requirements, said DeBeauvoir, who retires at month’s end….
Among other provisions, the law requires voters applying for a mail ballot to provide either a driver’s license or Social Security number, which must match the number they gave when first registering to vote.
That leaves some voters playing a “guessing game,” DeBeauvoir said, because many people cannot recall which number they provided originally and there is no easy way for voters to check….
Other provisions in the law are also creating obstacles, she said. The office previously added a sticker with voters’ addresses to applications that were mailed out to save them a step, but that is no longer permitted, Callanen said.
The law also prohibits residents from obtaining applications for other people, including relatives. Callanen said her office regularly receives messages from senior citizens asking for ballots for themselves and their spouses; under the law, spouses must make their own separate requests.
“It’s sort of thwarting us at every turn,” she said.