Nearly 23,000 Texans voted in this month’s party primaries and saw their mail ballots rejected by election officials, evidently an aftershock from new state laws that were supposed to make voting easier and more secure.
that included, among other things, bans on around-the-clock voting, drive-thru voting, public officials sending vote-by-mail applications to voters who didn’t request them and changes to mail voting — including new ID requirements — that complicated longstanding practices and evidently confused a lot of voters.
Changes in voting laws often go to courts, and if they’re coming to the courts from Texas, the judges frequently find discrimination and disenfranchisement, whether the subject is voting, elections or redistricting. This new Texas law, being challenged on some of that same familiar ground, is no exception, but the rules have changed. Texas and other states with histories of discrimination used to be required to get federal permission before making changes.
Every voter in a low-turnout election has more clout; their choices are diluted by fewer other voters than in a high-turnout election. Trashing 23,000 votes in the wake of new legislative restrictions on voting almost sounds like a crime. The election-doubters who tightened Texas voting laws in the name of secure elections would have gone to town if they had found that many people disenfranchised by scammers.