Texas Attorney General Paxton urged White House to revoke Harris County COVID relief funds over mail ballots | St. John Barned-Smith and Benjamin Wermund/Houston Chronicle

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tried to get the Trump administration to revoke millions in federal COVID relief funding that Harris County budgeted for expanded mail-in voting earlier this year, newly revealed records show. Paxton wrote in a May 21 letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that Harris County’s plan was an “abuse” of the county’s authority and an “egregious” violation of state law. The letter was obtained and published by the Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “We respectfully ask the department to scrutinize its award of CARES Act funding to Harris County in light of the county’s stated intent to use federal funding in violation of state law, and to the extent possible, seek return of any amounts improperly spent on efforts to promote illegal mail-in voting,” Paxton wrote. “Without implementing adequate protections against unlawful abuse of mail-in ballots, the department could be cast in a position of involuntarily facilitating election fraud.” The letter to Mnuchin illustrates the lengths Paxton went in his efforts to stop Harris and other counties from making it easier to vote by mail during the pandemic, which included later suing Harris County to block its plan to send mail ballot applications to all 2.4 million of its registered voters. Under Texas law, voting by mail is only an option for people who are 65 and older, disabled, incarcerated or out of the county on election day.

Full Article: Texas AG Paxton urged White House to revoke Harris County COVID relief funds over mail ballots – HoustonChronicle.com

Texas: Pennsylvania Lt. Governor Fetterman relentlessly trolls Dan Patrick seeking $3M voter fraud bounty | Benjamin Wermund/Houston Chronicle

All John Fetterman wants for Christmas is the $3 million he says Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick owes him. The Democratic lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania has been trolling his Republican counterpart for weeks to collect on the $1 million Patrick offered in November for evidence of fraud in the Nov. 3 election. Three supporters of President Donald Trump have now been charged in separate voter fraud schemes in Pennsylvania. Fetterman says they should all count for bounty purposes. The most recent charges came this week — against the second Pennsylvania man to be accused of casting a ballot for Trump in the name of his deceased mother. “We hit the jackpot with this last one,” Fetterman said. “There are three documented cases — three.” “All I want for Christmas is my handsome reward from Dan Patrick,” Fetterman tweeted on Dec. 18 with a Christmas tree and pleading face emoji. Fetterman says he’ll donate the proceeds to food banks in the form of gift cards to Sheetz and Wawa, competing Pennsylvania convenience stores with die-hard followings. Patrick has responded to Fetterman just once, in a tweet in November that read: “Faith in the electoral process is a serious issue. Transparency is critical. PA Dems brought this on themselves w/ last minute changes to election laws and counting ballots behind closed doors. Respond to the reports. Answer the questions. Stop the snide put-downs and #getserious” Fetterman says he is serious — about debunking the false allegations being thrown at his state. He has taken the lead in Pennsylvania pushing back on bogus claims of voter fraud circulated by Trump and his allies. Patrick — honorary chairman of Trump’s campaign in Texas — and his million-dollar reward are helping to disprove those claims, Fetterman says.

Full Article: Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Fetterman relentlessly trolls Dan Patrick seeking $1M voter fraud bounty – HoustonChronicle.com

Texas: Ken Paxton’s beefed-up 2020 voter fraud unit closed 16 minor cases, all in Harris County | Taylor Goldenstein/Houston Chronicle

The Texas Attorney General’s office this year almost doubled the amount of time it spent looking into and working on voter fraud cases in 2018 — more than 22,000 staff hours — yet resolved just 16 prosecutions, half as many as in 2018, records show.All 16 cases involved Harris County residents who gave false addresses on their voter registration forms. None of them received any jail time.Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has made the hunt for voter fraud a top priority of his office, between January and October gave the election integrity unit access to eight additional law enforcement sergeants on top of the nine already assigned to it, and doubled the number of prosecutors to four, according to records obtained from the agency by nonprofit government watchdog American Oversight and shared with Hearst Newspapers.In its 15 years of its existence, the unit has prosecuted a few dozen cases in which offenders received jail time, none of them involving widespread fraud. Paxton’s approach to the issue is the same as that of other top Texas Republicans, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott who earlier this month backed the attorney general’s last-ditch election suit at the Supreme Court challenging president-elect Joe Biden’s win in four battleground states — relentlessly insist voter fraud is a major concern while citing no evidence that it is prevalent. As President Donald Trump claimed that the election was stolen from him in early November, Patrick went so far as to offer a $1 million reward for tips leading to voter fraud convictions anywhere in the country.

Full Article: Ken Paxton’s beefed-up 2020 voter fraud unit closed 16 minor cases, all in Harris County – HoustonChronicle.com

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has had Trump’s back. But his latest gambit has failed. | Arelis R. Hernández and Maria Sacchetti/The Washington Post

The Texas attorney general who tried to orchestrate President Trump’s last stand spent most of his career under indictment for state securities fraud, but his closeness to the president had buffed that tarnish. Trump listens to Ken Paxton. He called so often the White House once caught him in the shower. And the state attorney general had the digits to call him back. Paxton’s star seemed ascendant as he positioned himself as one of Trump’s biggest allies, willing to fight legal battles on sanctuary cities, the Affordable Care Act and now the outcome of the presidential election. But the shadows over Texas’s folksy attorney general have been growing longer. Trump has lost the election. Paxton’s last-gasp effort to overturn the outcome via the U.S. Supreme Court has failed. His top deputies recently reported him to the FBI for alleged crimes such as bribery. And the Associated Press has reported that he cheated on his wife, Angela Paxton, who is a Republican state senator in Texas. Paxton, a tea party darling known as a shrewd politician, did not respond to requests for comment, but he appeared cheerful Thursday as he spoke to a conservative commentator on YouTube before heading into the Oval Office to talk about his petition seeking to dismiss the election results. “It’s our last chance, and it may be our last chance forever,” Paxton said in an interview with conservative commentator Steven Crowder. “Because if this gets set this way, I mean, we may never have elections again that we can count on.” After he spoke, the Austin American-Statesman reported that FBI agents served at least one subpoena at his office 1,500 miles away. The FBI declined to comment.

Full Article: Ken Paxton has had Trump’s back. But the Texas attorney general’s latest gambit has failed. – The Washington Post

Texas: Carrollton Democrat proposes changing state law to let hand marked paper ballot counties to have countywide vote centers | James Barragán/Dallas Morning News

State Rep. Michelle Beckley wants to bring countywide voting centers to Denton, which would allow residents to vote at any polling location in the county. To do so, she is pushing a bill in the Legislature to allow counties with paper-based ballots, like Denton, to participate in the state’s countywide polling place program. “You run for office and you want to increase voter turnout,” said Beckley, a Carrollton Democrat who considers this bill her top priority for the 2021 session that begins next month. “You just need to make it easier and less confusing.” Currently, to operate a countywide polling program, a county must use all electronic equipment to count votes. Denton County uses paper-based ballots that voters fill out by hand and are then scanned electronically into the voting system. Beckley’s bill would add language into the election code allowing counties that use such technology into the state’s countywide vote center program. “I think that’s a positive development,” said David Jones, president of the nonpartisan Clean Elections Texas. “We’re in favor of anything that makes it easier for people to vote.”

Full Article: Carrollton Democrat proposes changing Texas law to let Denton have countywide vote centers

Texas can’t block votes cast in other states. Absurdly, it’s trying. | Lisa Marshall Manheim/The Washington Post

In Texas, Republicans have worked hard to impose burdens on voters — at least, within the state’s own borders. But now they have grander plans. On Tuesday, Texas filed a lawsuit announcing its desire to interfere with voting processes in other states across the country. The lawsuit has no merit. It will fail. The effort though represents a galling expansion of Texas officials’ disregard for voters and the electoral process. In anticipation of the 2020 elections, Texas set a plan for its voters. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the plan included shuttering voting locations and refusing to meaningfully expand registration or mail-in voting options. The pandemic, in turn, convinced Texas officials to race into court — but not to ensure that voters could safely cast a ballot. Instead, officials litigated to prevent voters from securing a mail-in ballot for the purpose of avoiding the virus. Republican plaintiffs, including a member of the Texas House of Representatives, tried to convince courts to invalidate the votes of over 100,000 Texans who had voted at outdoor polling locations designed to reduce risks of contagion. Yet another line of litigation saw Texas officials vigorously defending voters’ ability to enter a polling place without wearing a mask. Efforts of this sort will help Texas to retain an ignominious title: hardest state in the country in which to cast a ballot. And yet that anti-democratic trophy appears not to be enough. At least, it is not enough for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who seeks to overturn the 2020 presidential election results by suing four swing states that already have certified victories for President-elect Joe Biden. (Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, also a Republican, announced late Tuesday that he was joining the lawsuit, and President Trump claimed Wednesday morning that he too would “be intervening” in the case.) Audaciously, Texas filed these claims directly in the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

Full Article: The Texas Supreme Court lawsuit won’t go anywhere – The Washington Post

Texas files an audacious suit with the Supreme Court challenging the election results. | Adam Liptak/The New York Times

The state of Texas filed an audacious lawsuit in the Supreme Court on Tuesday against four other states, asking the justices to extend the Dec. 14 deadline for certification of presidential electors. The suit, filed by the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, said Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin had engaged in election irregularities that require investigation, and it asked the court to “enjoin the use of unlawful election results without review and ratification by the defendant states’ legislatures.” Legal experts called the suit outlandish, and it comes at a time when Mr. Paxton is battling a scandal in his own state over whistle-blower allegations that he engaged in bribery and other wrongdoing to illegally help a wealthy Austin real estate developer and political donor. “It looks like we have a new leader in the ‘craziest lawsuit filed to purportedly challenge the election’ category,” Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, wrote on Twitter. The Constitution gives the Supreme Court “original jurisdiction” to hear disputes “in which a state shall be party.” In such cases, the Supreme Court acts much like a trial court, appointing a special master to hear evidence and issue recommendations. Though the Constitution seems to require the court to hear cases brought by states, the court has ruled that it has discretion to turn them down and often does. When the court does exercise its original jurisdiction, it is usually to adjudicate disputes between two states over issues like water rights. In 2016, the justices turned down a request from Nebraska and Oklahoma to file a challenge to Colorado’s legalization of recreational marijuana. The states said the Colorado law had spillover effects, taxing neighboring states’ criminal justice systems and hurting the health of their residents.

Full Article: Texas files an audacious suit with the Supreme Court challenging the election results. – The New York Times

Texas sues over election results in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania | Emma Platoff/The Texas Tribune

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing four battleground states — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — whose election results handed the White House to President-elect Joe Biden. In the suit, he claims that pandemic-era changes to election procedures in those states violated federal law and asks the U.S. Supreme Court to block the states from voting in the Electoral College. The last-minute bid, which legal experts have already characterized as a long shot, comes alongside dozens of similar attempts by President Donald Trump and his political allies. The majority of those lawsuits have already failed. There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, officials in most states and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr have said. Biden won in all four states where Paxton is challenging the results. In a filing to the high court Tuesday, Paxton claims the four battleground states broke the law by instituting pandemic-related changes to election policies, whether “through executive fiat or friendly lawsuits, thereby weakening ballot integrity.” Paxton claimed that these changes allowed for voter fraud to occur — a conclusion experts and election officials have rejected — and said the court should push back a Dec. 14 deadline by which states must appoint their presidential electors.

Full Article: Texas sues over election results in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania | The Texas Tribune

Texas: Rep. Ron Wright calls for investigation of election amid unsubstantiated fraud claims | Brian Lopez/Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Wright of Arlington is calling for an investigation into the 2020 election after Attorney General William Barr said the Justice Department uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Since Joe Biden won the election, President Donald Trump has challenged the result in key states with lawsuits, but Trump has found no success. In a statement Monday, Wright said he urges Barr to appoint a special counsel as it would ensure that allegations of voter fraud are investigated to the fullest extent by the Justice Department. Wright said an investigation would “ultimately restore the American people’s utmost faith in our democratic system.” The statement did not clarify if Wright was talking only about the presidential election or every election, which would include his victory. The Star-Telegram reached out to Wright, but his office did not immediately respond. Wright joins Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick as Texas officials who have at one point refused to acknowledge Biden as the winner and have claimed that all legal votes need to be counted. Political experts have said Republicans don’t want to get on the bad side of the party and Trump, who is still in office, so they still voice support for him.

Full Article: Arlington TTX congressman wants investigation of election | Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Texas could soon enact same-day voter registration on Election Day | Jay R. Jordan/Houston Chronicle

Texas saw record-breaking voter turnout in 2020. Nearly 68 percent of the state’s 17 million registered voters cast ballots in the presidential election, the highest rate in decades. Even with such a massive turnout, there’s always room for improvement. In nearly half of all states, residents are able to register to vote on Election Day. But in Texas, the deadline to register is an entire month before Election Day. A Houston-area lawmaker hopes to change that. State Rep. Ron Reynolds, a Democrat representing parts of Fort Bend County, filed a bill Thursday for the upcoming legislature that, if enacted, would allow anyone to register and vote on Election Day throughout the state starting in late 2021. The bill states that two voter registrars must be present at each polling location to register new voters, according to text of the bill. Voters will cast a provisional ballot and fill out a voter registration form, which will then be corroborated by the registrar and Texas Secretary of State.

Full Article: Texas could soon enact same-day voter registration on Election Day

Texas GOP lawmakers target voter fraud, despite no proof of widespread problem | Karen Brooks Harper/The Texas Tribune

Fresh off a presidential election replete with accusations of election malfeasance but devoid of evidence of widespread fraud in Texas, local Republican leaders say the state needs more laws to protect the integrity of the state’s elections. To that end, GOP state lawmakers are heading into the next state legislative session with a fistful of anti-fraud bills aimed at an issue that experts — and even some conservatives — acknowledge isn’t much of a problem in the Lone Star State. Nearly a dozen pieces of legislation, all of them filed by Republicans, take aim at mail-in balloting, illegal voting and misbehaving elections officials — inspired by events and talking points from the previous election cycle. “Filing legislation that will prevent voter fraud ensures that we have fair elections,” said Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, a member of the House Elections Committee last session and author of several anti-fraud bills. “If people do not trust in the electoral process, they will not trust those who are elected.” Texas Democrats, who are focusing their efforts on legislation to expand voter access, counter that the bills are being filed as a way to sow mistrust in the process or make it harder to register and vote.

Full Article: Texas GOP lawmakers target voter fraud, despite no proof of widespread problem | The Texas Tribune

Texas: ‘I refuse to be afraid.’ Appeal filed in Tarrant County woman’s illegal voting conviction | Kaley Johnson/Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas filed a petition Monday to appeal the five-year sentence of a woman who was convicted of voter fraud in Tarrant County. The ACLU and other legal representatives requested that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals review the case of Crystal Mason, whose illegal voting conviction in Tarrant County has become widely controversial. Three justices on the Court of Appeals for the Second District of Texas denied Mason’s first appeal in March, although it agreed she did not know she was ineligible to vote. Now the ACLU will try to take the case — which ACLU legal director Andre Segura called, “one of the most important voting rights cases in modern Texas history” — through the next appeals process. In the 2016 election, Mason submitted a provisional ballot, later saying she was not aware she could not vote while on federally supervised release. Her ballot was not counted — provisional ballots are meant to allow a voter to cast a potential ballot even if their name does not appear on the list of registered voters. The ballot is examined later for validity. Nearly 4,500 other people submitted provisional ballots in Tarrant County in the 2016 election. Of those, 3,990 provisional ballots were rejected, the Texas Tribune reported. But in March 2018, Mason was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for illegal voting. And while she appealed her case last year, the Second District Appeals Court upheld her conviction after a hearing in Tarrant County in September 2019.

Full Article: Crystal Mason’s legal team appeals illegal voting conviction | Fort Worth Star-Telegram

 

Texas Republicans follow Trump’s lead, spread misinformation about election | Abby Livingston and Shawn Mulcahy/The Texas Tribune

As votes continue to be counted in the presidential race, President Donald Trump used both Twitter and the White House to sow doubts about the integrity of the electoral process. Some of Texas’ most prominent Republican politicians, including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, have joined the president in amplifying misinformation about the election across their platforms. Much of the misinformation has been centered on the vote-counting process in states like Pennsylvania, a battleground territory in the race for the presidency. The count in Pennsylvania was expected to be slow because of the large number of mail-in ballots and because state law prevented poll workers from beginning to process them until Election Day. Cruz appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Thursday night and charged that Philadelphia officials are “not allowing the election observers in, despite clear state law that requires election observers being there.” U.S. Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Victoria, said on a local radio show Friday morning that it was disturbing “they won’t let poll watchers in, after a judge’s order, is very telling.”

Full Article: Texas Republicans follow Trump’s lead, spread misinformation about election | The Texas Tribune

Texas: Comal County investigates scope of Election Day tech issues | Leah Durain/KENS 5

Comal County Elections Officials are reviewing voter logs to see how many people could have been impacted by a technical issue at the polls on Tuesday. The glitch impacted ballots cast on Election Day after poll pads were rebooted. Election workers heard from three voters who noticed local races were missing but others may not have known their ballots were incomplete. “It’s very possible that they didn’t realize that it wasn’t on there,” said Comal County Clerk, Bobbie Koepp. “We’re checking each one up against what could have voted versus what voted.” Koepp says the company that makes the poll pads, where the issue seems to have originated, should have notified her sooner and should take some responsibility. “It’s part of my duties to make sure that everybody gets what they’re supposed to get when they come to vote and I do take responsibility for that,” said Koepp. “But in my defense, I honestly feel that [KnowInk] needs to make it right. They need to make a statement and need to tell everybody what happened.”

Full Article: Comal County investigates scope of Election Day tech issues | kens5.com

Texas: Here’s how votes are counted in Texas | Hanna Kozlowska/The Texas Tribune

There are more votes than ever to count in Texas this year: A record-breaking 9.7 million people cast ballots during Texas’ early voting period — 8.7 million of those were cast in person, and nearly 1 million sent through the mail. By the time Election Day comes and goes, experts predict that the total Texas vote count could reach 12 million. The state’s 254 counties are responsible for tabulating the ballots, but they must follow a certain set of rules. Here’s how the process works in Texas. County officials have already started reviewing mail-in ballots. In counties with over 100,000 residents, early voting ballot boards were allowed to start convening and processing mail-in ballots 12 days before the election. In smaller ones, they could start after the polls closed on the last day of early voting — which this year was Oct. 30. Mail-in ballots must be postmarked by Nov. 3, and they must arrive by Nov. 4. Once the early voting ballot board gets the ballot, officials check whether the voter is registered to vote and may entrust a signature verification committee to match the signature on the envelope to the voter’s absentee ballot application. (They may use other signatures the county has on file.) The signature verification committee must have at least one reviewer from each party, and the majority of its members has to agree that the signature matches. Because of a ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Oct. 19, Texas officials can reject a mail-in ballot without telling the voter, unlike in states such as California, where voters must be notified of a problem with their ballot and given the opportunity to fix it.

Full Article: Here’s how votes are counted in Texas | The Texas Tribune

Texas Supreme Court rejects Republican effort to toss nearly 127K votes | Jolie McCullough/The Texas Tribune

A legal cloud hanging over nearly 127,000 votes already cast in Harris County was at least temporarily lifted Sunday when the Texas Supreme Court rejected a request by several conservative Republican activists and candidates to preemptively throw out early balloting from drive-thru polling sites in the state’s most populous, and largely Democratic, county. The all-Republican court denied the request without an order or opinion, as justices did last month in a similar lawsuit brought by some of the same plaintiffs. The Republican plaintiffs, however, are pursuing a similar lawsuit in federal court, hoping to get the votes thrown out by arguing that drive-thru voting violates the U.S. constitution. A hearing in that case is set for Monday morning in a Houston-based federal district court, one day before Election Day. A rejection of the votes would constitute a monumental disenfranchisement of voters — drive-thru ballots account for about 10% of all in-person ballots cast during early voting in Harris County. After testing the approach during the July primary runoff with little controversy, Harris County, home to Houston, set up 10 drive-thru centers for the fall election to make early voting easier for people concerned about entering polling places during the pandemic. Voters pull up in their cars, and after their registrations and identifications have been confirmed by poll workers are handed an electronic tablet through their car windows to cast ballots.

Full Article: Texas Supreme Court rejects Republican effort to toss nearly 127K votes | The Texas Tribune

Texas: Federal judge to hear challenge to Harris County’s drive-thru voting already used by 100,000 | Alejandro Serrano/Houston Chronicle

A federal judge on Monday will hear a complaint brought by Texas conservatives that challenges Harris County’s use of curbside drive-thru voting, according to the judge’s schedule and court records. Houston conservative activist Steven Hotze and three Republicans — state Rep. Steve Toth, Wendell Champion, a candidate for Congress, and Sharon Hemphill, who is running for a judgeship — are seeking an injunction requiring all memory cards from 10 drive-thru voting locations be secured and not entered or downloaded into the tally machine until the court issues a ruling on the complaint. The plaintiffs allege that curbside drive-thru voting runs afoul of state and federal election law. They are seeking the rejection of any votes “cast in violation of the Texas Election Code”; an order to make county elections officials review all curbside voting applications and reject those that do not meet parameters set by the code; and a permanent injunction stopping “a universal drive-thru voting scheme” unless it is adopted by the state legislature.By the time the complaint was filed, 100,000 drive-thru votes had already been cast. Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, the only named defendant, said Saturday afternoon the option was “a safe, secure and convenient way to vote.” “Texas Election Code allows it, the Secretary of State approved it, and 117,000 voters from all walks of life have used it,” Hollins said in a statement. “The Harris County Clerk’s Office is committed to counting every vote cast by registered voters in this election. In the event court proceedings require any additional steps from these voters, we will work swiftly to provide that information to the public.”

Full Article: Federal judge to hear challenge to Harris County’s drive-thru voting already used by 100,000 – HoustonChronicle.com

Texas: Appeals court halts US judge’s ruling ordering masks at polls | Chuck Lindell/Austin American-Statesman

A San Antonio federal judge has ordered everyone who enters or works at a Texas polling place to wear a face covering as a pandemic safety precaution. Late Wednesday, however, a federal appeals court issued an informal stay blocking enforcement of the order while its judges consider a longer-term stay. The order by U.S. District Judge Jason Pulliam, appointed by President Donald Trump, voided an exemption for polling sites that Gov. Greg Abbott had included in his statewide mask mandate. The exemption, Pulliam ruled, violates the Voting Rights Act “because it creates a discriminatory burden on Black and Latino voters.” The pandemic has disproportionately affected minorities, placing them at higher risk of severe illness and death and forcing them to make “the unfortunate choice required between voting and minimizing their risk” of exposure under Abbott’s poll exemption, the judge wrote.

Full Article: Appeals court halts US judge’s ruling ordering masks at Texas polls

Texas counties will be allowed only one drop-off location for mail-in ballots, state Supreme Court rules | Jolie McCullough/The Texas Tribune

In what’s expected to be the final ruling on the matter, the Texas Supreme Court has upheld Gov. Greg Abbott’s order limiting Texas counties to only one drop-off location for voters to hand deliver their absentee ballots during the pandemic. The ruling, issued Tuesday by the all-Republican court, is the final outcome in one of a handful of lawsuits in state and federal courts that challenged Abbott’s order from early this month. A federal appeals court also sided with the Republican governor in an earlier ruling, overturning a lower court’s decision. The state lawsuit argued that the governor doesn’t have authority under state law to limit absentee ballot hand-delivery locations, and that his order violates voters’ equal protection rights under the state constitution. The suit was filed in Travis County by a Texas-based Anti-Defamation League, a voting rights advocacy group and a voter. In their opinion, the justices wrote that Abbott’s order “provides Texas voters more ways to vote in the November 3 election than does the Election Code. It does not disenfranchise anyone.”

Full Article: Texas counties will have only one drop-off location for mail-in ballots | The Texas Tribune

Texas: Roughly one-third of Tarrant County’s mail-in ballots cause scanning issues due to defective barcodes | Alex Briseno/The Dallas Morning News

Roughly one-third of Tarrant County’s mail-in ballots are getting rejected by ballot scanners due to illegible barcodes by the printing company, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram first reported. Tarrant County Election Administrator Heider Garcia placed the blame on the printing vendor, as officials said the scanners are having trouble reading the barcode on the envelope to validate the ballot inside, which is causing the scanners to reject them. Garcia told the Tarrant County Commissioners Court Tuesday morning that the election board will have to manually recopy the mail-in ballots with illegible barcodes into new ballots under the election code, but that every valid vote ultimately will be counted properly. “What’s happening is we scan the ballots in, and the scanner says, ‘I don’t identify these documents, I can’t see the barcodes,’” Garcia told the board. “When the scanner doesn’t see the barcode, it might as well have been a newspaper that you scanned, it’s just not a ballot.” Garcia said they are having to scan the ballots in, separate the faulty barcodes and go through the same process the ballot board follows with overseas ballots. In that case, Garcia explained, overseas voters receive their ballot via email and print it out. Once the board receives that ballot, they copy it onto an official ballot.

Full Article: Roughly one-third of Tarrant County’s mail-in ballots cause scanning issues due to defective barcodes

Texas order allowing counties to have multiple mail-in ballot drop off sites is upheld, but appeal will likely halt openings| Jolie McCullough/The Texas Tribune

A state appeals court has upheld a Travis County State district court order allowing Texas counties to have multiple drop-off locations for hand delivery of absentee ballots, undercutting Gov. Greg Abbott’s recent directive limiting counties to one drop-off site.But it remains unclear if the intermediate court’s decision will lead to the reopening of ballot drop-off locations that were shut down in Harris and Travis counties after Abbott’s order. Abbott and Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs planned to immediately appeal the ruling to the Texas Supreme Court to again block the order from taking effect, the attorney general’s office said.The lawsuit, filed in Travis County, is one of several state and federal court challenges to Abbott’s Oct. 1 order, which shut down three ballot drop-off locations in Travis County and 11 in Harris County and halted plans for more drop-offs in other counties. Last week, a federal appeals court upheld the Republican governor’s order under federal law, overturning a lower court’s ruling.

Texas Supreme Court stays order that had blocked Gov. Greg Abbott’s mail ballot drop-off limits | James Barragán/The Dallas Morning News

The Texas Supreme Court on Saturday stayed a lower court’s order that had blocked Gov. Greg Abbott’s order limiting counties to one mail ballot drop-off site. The decision followed a ruling Friday by Texas’ Austin-based Third Court of Appeals that had upheld a state judge’s order blocking Abbott’s order. The state had appealed the Third Court of Appeals order. The state Supreme Court was still reviewing whether to take further action in the case and ordered both sides to file their responses by 5 p.m. Monday. By then, there will be just more than one week left for voters to return their mail ballots in person to early voting clerks around the state. The case centers on whether local elected officials can accept mail ballots at satellite offices. Harris County had told voters it would accept such ballots at 11 of the early voting clerk’s annexes. Travis County and Fort Bend Counties also planned to offer multiple drop-off sites.

Texas Supreme Court rules that voters in Harris County may continue using drive-thru voting | Jolie McCullough/The Texas Tribune

Voters in the state’s most populous county can continue casting their ballots for the fall election at 10 drive-thru polling places after the Texas Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a last-minute challenge by the Texas and Harris County Republican parties, one of many lawsuits in an election season ripe with litigation over voting access. The court rejected the challenge without an order or opinion, though Justice John Devine dissented from the decision. The justices had already ruled against another challenge to expanded voting access this month because they said the lawsuit was filed too late, noting that altering voting procedures during an election could cause voter confusion.In an effort to expand access to voting during the pandemic, Harris County announced in June that it would set up 10 drive-thru polling locations available to all voters, the county clerk’s office explained in its filing to the Supreme Court. The county first tested the program with 200 voters in the July primary runoff election. At the locations, lines of cars are guided into either covered tents or a parking garage where poll workers check voters’ photo identification and registration status. Voters are handed a portable voting machine in their car to cast their ballots, the clerk’s filing said.

Texas Republicans’ challenge to Harris County drive-thru voting dismissed | Jolie McCullough/The Texas Tribune

Drive-thru and curbside voting programs in Harris County can continue after a state appeals court Wednesday quickly threw out a last-minute lawsuit filed by the Texas Republican Party challenging the county’s efforts to provide more voting options during the coronavirus pandemic. The state GOP had filed suit Monday night asking the court to place limits on curbside voting and halt drive-thru voting. The appellate judges said the party and a voter who filed the suit did so too late, and did not show how they specifically might be injured by the voting practices. The lawsuit was filed just hours before early voting polls opened and more than a month after the Harris County Clerk announced his plan for drive-thru voting. “The election is currently in progress and the relators delayed filing this mandamus until over a month after learning of the actions of the Harris County Clerk’s Office,” the panel of three judges on Texas’ 14th Court of Appeals wrote in their ruling dismissing the case.

Texas: President Trump’s attempt to rock the vote rattles Texas politics | Ross Ramsey/The Texas Tribune

President Donald Trump is in a tight spot, behind in national polls and barely ahead in Texas, where no Democrat has won a presidential race since 1976. When he said the other day that “nobody likes me,” nobody disagreed with him. His situation sets the environment for Republicans and Democrats up and down the November ballot in Texas. If the Republican president does well, that’s probably to the benefit of other Republicans on the ballot, even if the state doesn’t have straight-ticket voting anymore. If he does poorly, it could spell a good day for the Democrats. And in an election where a half dozen seats in Congress and the Republican majority in the Texas House are at stake, the top candidate’s performance is critical. On Thursday morning, the president retreated to his safe space — Twitter — where he ruminated on the impending election that could make him the first one-term president in almost three decades. “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???,” Trump tweeted. That sent a shudder through the political world. Democrats predictably started hacking away — or continued hacking away — at Trump. But Republicans, who’ve been very cautious about creating any distance between themselves and a president with strong support from their party’s voters, made room for themselves this time.

Texas: President Trump's attempt to rock the vote rattles Texas politics | Ross Ramsey/The Texas Tribune

President Donald Trump is in a tight spot, behind in national polls and barely ahead in Texas, where no Democrat has won a presidential race since 1976. When he said the other day that “nobody likes me,” nobody disagreed with him. His situation sets the environment for Republicans and Democrats up and down the November ballot in Texas. If the Republican president does well, that’s probably to the benefit of other Republicans on the ballot, even if the state doesn’t have straight-ticket voting anymore. If he does poorly, it could spell a good day for the Democrats. And in an election where a half dozen seats in Congress and the Republican majority in the Texas House are at stake, the top candidate’s performance is critical. On Thursday morning, the president retreated to his safe space — Twitter — where he ruminated on the impending election that could make him the first one-term president in almost three decades. “With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???,” Trump tweeted. That sent a shudder through the political world. Democrats predictably started hacking away — or continued hacking away — at Trump. But Republicans, who’ve been very cautious about creating any distance between themselves and a president with strong support from their party’s voters, made room for themselves this time.

Texas: Governor extends early voting for November election by six days | Alexa Ura/The Texas Tribune

Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday extended the early voting period for the November election by six days, citing continued challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. Early voting for the Nov. 3 election will now begin Oct. 13 instead of Oct. 19. The end date remains Oct. 30. The extension of the early voting period is not a surprise. During a TV interview in late May, Abbott said he would add more time to the early voting period for the November election — as he did for the primary runoff election earlier this month — but did not elaborate. Last week, Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins asked Abbott to provide more details so that election officials could have enough time to prepare. In a letter to the governor, Hollins requested that Abbott move the start date to Oct. 13 at the latest. For the runoffs, Abbott doubled the early voting period, shifting the start date from July 6 to June 29. The end date was July 10.

Texas: Texans with disabilities sue to challenge mail-in ballot process | Katie Hall/Austin American-Statesman

Disability rights groups have filed a federal lawsuit against the Texas secretary of state, contending that the vote-by-mail process is inaccessible to people with impairments to vision and writing. People with these disabilities must either seek help to vote by mail or “risk their health during this pandemic by traveling to a polling place,” the suit argues. The solution would be to offer online voting options, which are already available to people in the military and people overseas, they said. Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs disagrees, saying it’s unfeasible to implement online voting this close to the general election, according to an attorney who wrote a letter on her behalf earlier this month. The National Federation of the Blind of Texas and the Coalition of Texans With Disabilities, along with three Texas men with disabilities — an Austin man who is blind, a Beaumont man who also is blind, and an Arlington man with cerebral palsy — are suing Hughs. All three men would prefer to vote online for the November election, the suit says.

Texas: Disabilities advocates: Texas mail ballot system disenfranchises people with disabilities | James Barragán/Dallas Morning News

A group of advocates for Texans with disabilities sued the state of Texas on Friday claiming its mail ballot system kept people with disabilities from participating in mail voting. The lawsuit filed in a federal court in Austin alleges that the current system, which is done on paper ballots, is inaccessible to blind voters and other voters with disabilities who can’t compete a paper ballot because of their disability. The plaintiffs asked the federal court to force the state to implement a vote-by-mail system that is remotely accessible for people with disabilities before the November elections. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the National Federation of the Blind of Texas, the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities and three individual plaintiffs. They are represented by Brown Goldstein & Levy and Disability Rights Texas. “There is plenty of time to allow Texas to make mail-in ballots accessible in time for the upcoming elections on Nov. 3,” Lia Davis, senior attorney at Disability Rights Texas, said in a statement. “People who are blind have a right to use the mail-in ballot option, and they should not be unnecessarily exposed to the COVID-19 virus at the polls. We believe there is an easy remedy to this problem and the Secretary of State’s obstinance is discriminatory.”

Texas: In-person voting rules during pandemic challenged in lawsuit | Alexa Ura/The Texas Tribune

Opening a new front in the legal wars over voting during the coronavirus pandemic, two civil rights organizations and two Texas voters argue that the state’s rules for in-person voting won’t work this year and are asking a federal judge to require substantial changes. In a wide-ranging federal lawsuit filed Thursday in San Antonio, Mi Familia Vota, the Texas NAACP and the voters claim the state’s current polling place procedures — including rules for early voting, the likelihood of long lines and Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to not require voters to wear masks — place an unconstitutional burden on voters while the virus remains in circulation. That burden will be particularly high for Black and Latino voters whose communities have been disproportionately affected by the virus, the lawsuit argues. “The Texas 2020 elections will put voters at risk of transmitting or being infected with the coronavirus. But the risk will not be shared equally,” the lawsuit reads. “Some voters will be able to vote easily by mail. Others will not. Some will have easy access to early voting locations. Others will not. “And some will be able to vote quickly on Election Day by a hand-marked paper ballot handled by a single poll worker, or on a properly disinfected machine. Others will have to wait for hours at understaffed locations, without the option to vote on a hand-marked paper ballot, forced to vote on a machine used by dozens or hundreds of voters, which should, but might not, be properly disinfected after each use, much less protected from aerosolized particles from the last voter’s breathing in the same space.”