The Guardian by Oliver Milman 1/15/2022
Election officials in the Texas county that includes the state capital, Austin, have rejected about half of applications for mail-in ballots, following new voting restrictions brought in by Republicans.
The voter identification rules have led to the rejection of about half of the 700 mail-in ballots requested in Travis county for primary elections in March, according to the county’s clerk.
The denied ballots in Travis county follow a similar trend across Texas, with officials in Harris county, which includes the city of Houston, and Bexar county, which includes San Antonio, also turning down a substantial number of mail-in ballot applications.
In Texas, state Republicans last year enacted new voting laws that require absentee voters to include their driver’s license number, state ID number or the last four digits of their social security number on their applications. Counties then have to match this information with voter profiles to approve them for a mail-in ballot.
The new rules ( This article is more than 4 months old)
The Texas legislature gave its final approval on Tuesday to a new bill that would impose substantial new restrictions on voting access in the state. The restrictions would only add to those already in place in Texas, which has some of the most burdensome voting requirements in the US and was among the states with the lowest voter turnout in 2020.
also ban drive-through and 24-hour voting and allow more access to partisan poll watchers. The Biden administration has decried the wave of voting restrictions around the country as undemocratic and the US justice department has filed a lawsuit claiming that Texas’ new laws disenfranchised eligible voters contrary to their civil rights.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/15/texas-county-rejects-half-of-mail-in-ballot-applications-amid-new-voter-restrictions