Even country music legend Willie Nelson discovered it laborious to vote absentee within the March 1 major below new Texas election legal guidelines, his spouse stated. Nelson and his spouse made two makes an attempt earlier than they succeeded in acquiring absentee ballots from Travis County elections officers, spouse Annie D’Angelo-Nelson told the Austin American-Statesman.
She stated their first functions have been rejected due to inconsistent identification data offered on the varieties. She stated they’re involved for these wanting absentee ballots however aren’t as tech-savvy as her and her musician-husband.
Texas threw out mail votes at an abnormally excessive price in the course of the nation’s first major of 2022, rejecting almost 23,000 ballots outright below harder voting guidelines which are a part of a broad marketing campaign by Republicans to reshape American elections, based on an analysis by The Associated Press.
Roughly 13% of mail ballots returned within the March 1 major have been discarded and uncounted throughout 187 counties in Texas. Specialists stated something above 2% typically attracts consideration. “My first response is ‘yikes,’” Charles Stewart III, director of the Election Information and Science Lab on the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how told the AP. “It says to me that there’s one thing critically flawed with the best way that the mail poll coverage is being administered.”
A lot of the rejected ballots, based on county election officers and the Texas secretary of state, failed to stick to the brand new identification necessities. Republicans promised new layers of voting guidelines would make it “easier to vote and harder to cheat.” However the closing numbers recorded by AP lay naked the evident gulf between that goal and the obstacles, frustration and tens of 1000’s of uncounted votes ensuing from tighter restrictions and rushed implementation.
In Texas, a state former President Donald Trump simply received though by a smaller margin than 2016, the difficulty of navigating new guidelines was felt in counties massive and small, purple and blue. However the rejection price was increased in counties that lean Democratic (15.1%) than Republican (9.1%).
At the very least 17 different states within the coming months will forged ballots below harder election legal guidelines, partially pushed by Trump’s baseless and chronic claims of rampant fraud within the 2020 election. The rejected ballots in Texas alone far exceeds the hundreds of even possible voter fraud cases the AP has beforehand recognized in six battleground states that Trump disputed.
