‌‌‌‌‌The Count Is In: Texas Voting Rules Sidelined Thousands

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Hello readers!

We can now say for sure: Thanks to Texas’ new voter suppression law, SB1, ballots in the state were rejected by the thousands.

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‘So Angry’ At Texas Republicans’ Disenfranchising Voting Law

Kate Riga and I have a new story on the astounding ballot rejection rates out of TEXAS, where voters are now required to use an ID number on their mail-in ballot that matches the number they used when they registered to vote in the first place — sometimes decades ago. 
 

And, unsurprisingly, it’s bad news: Nearly 14% of mail-in ballots were ultimately rejected in Collin County, as were 8% in Travis County, 11.5% in Williamson County and 16% in El Paso county.

In Harris County, home to Houston, nearly 19% of mail-in ballots were rejected for violating SB1, compared to 0.3% in the 2018 primaries. That amounted to nearly 7,000 voters disenfranchised this year in Harris County alone, according to a statement from the county. Across the state, more than 18,000 ballots have been rejected, according to a Texas Tribune tally of Texas’ largest counties. 
 

Now, imagine what will happen when we hit the general election later this year, and, worse yet, the 2024 presidential election. The impact of Republicans’ onerous ID law could amount to hundreds of thousands of rejected ballots, one political analyst told us.

“I’m so angry with what the Texas legislature did to us, really,” said one voter — whose ballot was only counted because a county elections worker made a 45-minute drive to her home.

Tina Peters, Meet The Grand Jury

We’ve been watching the story of Tina Peters, the clerk of Mesa County, COLORADO for months now. Peters, a Big Lie promoter with ties to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and other influencers in this space, has long been eyed for a mysterious leak of sensitive election data from her office.

Well, now Peters faces 10 counts in an indictment from a Colorado grand jury. In essence, she’s accused of committing identity theft and misleading state officials as part of a scheme to breach county security protocols. The result, according to the indictment, was the distribution of confidential information from county election systems.

I’m fascinated with the story because, to me, it serves as a warning: Dozens of pro-Trump candidates who believe the 2020 race was stolen from him are running to lead elections offices around the country. What will they do if they win? Tina Peters offers one example.

Around The States

Kate Riga has an important story on the Supreme Court’s conservatives warming to the independent state legislature doctrine, which if followed to its logical conclusion would free conservative state legislatures from judicial review— a nightmare for free and fair elections as well as Americans’ hopes for fairly drawn congressional districts. 
 

The latest to take the Supreme Court’s temperature? WISCONSIN’s Republican congressional delegation, who’ve asked the court to step in after their own state Supreme Court opted to institute a redistricting map supported by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. 
 

As it stands, “the Supreme Court has taken away some of our tools” to enforce voting rights, Attorney General Merrick Garland told NPR — namely sections 2 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act. 
 

One in five election workers don’t think they’ll be in those jobs by the time we get to the 2024 presidential election, according to a new poll commissioned by the Brennan Center that shows the burnout, fear and stress of these public servants. 
 

Yet another election bill is in the works in GEORGIA, and it’s sort of a mixed bag: The bill would make original paper ballots public records, give the Georgia Bureau of Investigation jurisdiction over election cases (supplementing the secretary of state’s office), and make threatening violence against poll workers and election officials a felony. 
 

The bill also tightly restricts private or non-governmental donations intended to aid election administration, part of Republicans’ reaction to donations from Mark Zuckerberg that made their way to election administrators across the country, and which the right has described as bribes for Democratic turnout. 

Another bill, prohibiting election officials from taking private money for election expenses, passed the ALABAMA House on Friday. Opponents fear it could imperil voter registration efforts from non-profits. 
 

Here’s one little-discussed aspect of FLORIDA Republicans’ latest voting legislation, which is usually first described as legislation to create an election police force: it also bans ranked-choice voting in the state. 

The Latest In Election Sabotage

Matthew DePerno, the attorney that made Antrim, MICHIGAN into a byword for the Big Lie, is a Trump-endorsed candidate for attorney general of Michigan. And now, Trump has held a fundraiser for him at Mar-a-Lago. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump explains the secret to earning Trump’s support: DePerno, he writes, has “tried his best to unwind history on Trump’s behalf.” 
 

Last week we covered the report produced by former WISCONSIN Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who among other things suggested the 2020 election results in the state should be “decertified” (not a thing) because… well, it wasn’t a very compelling argument. The Wisconsin Election Commission has now responded to the partisan report, and Wisconsin Public Radio does a good job laying the story out here.
 

A county elections official in MICHIGAN, a Democrat, has been charged with ballot tampering and misconduct in office, based on alleged misconduct going back to her days as clerk of Flint Township. Kathy Funk is accused of deliberately breaking the seal on a box of ballots, which would exclude the ballots from what in 2020 was a potential recount in her own clerk’s race. 

MIT (via Election Law Blog): 2020 Was a Banner Year for U.S. Election Administration
 

NYT: A Potential Rarity in American Politics: A Fair Congressional Map
Note: This is an interesting analysis, but in my opinion the word “fair” is misused. A perfectly balanced congressional map is unlikely to be “fair” to the party that won five million more votes last time. 
 

Rick Hasen: How to Keep the Rising Tide of Fake News From Drowning Our Democracy
 

NBC News: Rogue county officials spark fear of growing 'insider' threats to elections

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