Texas, where the first primary of the 2022 midterm elections kicked off Monday with early voting and a highly restrictive voting law in effect. On Monday, 30 civil rights groups sent a letter to the Texas secretary of state calling for stronger action to ensure voters have access to the ballot leading up to the March 1st primary.
Measures enacted by Republican lawmakers under the state’s Senate Bill 1 have already caused problems for Texas voters, with local election officials reportedly rejecting a high number of mail-in ballots that lack newly required ID information. Texas already has strict rules for voting by mail, but, under S.B. 1, voters must now include a state identification number, like a driver’s license number or a partial Social Security number, both when they request a mail-in ballot and when they return their completed ballot. The place to include the ID is underneath the envelope flap, and apparently it’s easy to miss. The new ID rules had already led to thousands of rejected ballot requests, and now officials say they’re facing high rates of faulty ballots. In Houston, Harris County, some 40% of the ballots, nearly four in 10, have been rejected due to a missing ID number. In Dallas, more than 25%, about 28%, more than a quarter, of the ballots have been rejected.
— source democracynow.org | Feb 15, 2022