What are the new voting laws in Texas

In the weeks ahead of Election Day, voting rights advocates braced themselves as local election officials began navigating rules created by Texas' new voting law.

James Slattery, a senior staff attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, was among the experts warning state lawmakers that the law, known as Senate Bill 1, would lead to confusion and trouble for voters.

“What we were concerned about was not any one specific problem, but a mix of confusion by voters and election officials as they were trying to implement this major and large new law,” he said.

SB 1 was a sweeping overhaul of the state’s election code. It set new restrictions on polling hours. It banned drive-thru voting. It created new ID requirements for mail-in voting and new paperwork requirements for people who assist voters with disabilities. On top of that, SB 1 created a slew of criminal penalties aimed at voters, volunteers and county election officials.

Because so much changed, Slattery said he was preparing for issues to crop up.

“You know whenever a new law is implemented for the first time, there is always going to be problems that you don’t anticipate,” he said.

Mostly, Slattery said, he was on the lookout for things he did see coming.

For instance, he warned lawmakers the new ID requirements for vote-by-mail applications and return envelopes would confuse voters and create chaos for local election officials across the state.

He was right.

Mismatched ID numbers

Under SB 1, voters have to provide either a driver’s license or Social Security number on their vote-by-mail applications and return envelopes. That number has to match what’s on their voter registration record.

State election officials have said the vast majority of voters should have one or both of those numbers on their record, making that matching process straightforward.

However, in the weeks before early voting began, some county election officials reported they were having trouble matching large numbers of applications. In Travis County, about half the applications that came in couldn’t be matched to the voter registration database and were flagged for rejection.

Eventually, the state issued guidance on how local officials should cure applications so eligible voters didn't have their applications erroneously thrown out.

Then, voters began returning their mail-in ballots.

Local officials again were flagging large numbers of returned ballots mostly for issues related to the ID requirements. In addition to issues with matching, local officials found many voters simply missed the part of the envelope where they were supposed to put their ID information.

“It is not surprising that voters would overlook a step that they are not used to making at all on a document that is already wildly complicated,” Slattery said.

Over time, the percentage of ballots flagged for rejection came down. But the confusion was enough to deter some voters from voting by mail.

Confusion over the rules

Dian Hanson, who lives in West Austin, said she’s been voting by mail ever since she became eligible almost a decade ago.

In Texas, only voters who are over 65, out of town on Election Day, disabled or in jail can vote by mail.

Hanson said before SB 1, she got an application sent to her without even asking; she would fill it out and vote without issue.

This time things were different.

“I knew that there was probably some place to put my identification, but to tell you the truth, it is very hard to find on that form,” she said. “As I was filling it out I kept seeing all these little stories on social media — both Facebook and Twitter — that applications for the ballots were being rejected.”

Hanson said those stories worried her, so she decided to vote in person. She said she’s lucky, because she works from home and there was a polling location nearby.

“It seems to me like neighborhoods that don’t have as easy access to the polls would be much more affected by this kind of confusion,” she said. “So I feel like I have that choice — that I can do that. But I fear for people who are disabled and don’t have transportation.”

New penalties for people who help

Changes made by SB 1 also deterred some people from helping out during the election. That includes election workers, who now face criminal penalties if they obstruct poll watchers.

“[SB 1 is] creating uncertainty and reluctance among the volunteer workforce that we all depend on to make elections run."

Bee Moorhead, Texas Impact

Bee Moorhead, executive director of Texas Impact — the state’s largest interfaith advocacy network — said many of the people her group works with do civic engagement around elections, like working at polls, assisting voters with disabilities and helping people register to vote.

But Moorhead said some of these people are weighing the risks since SB 1 went into effect.

“We’ve had members telling us that they have been election judges for decades,” she said, “but they are not doing it this year because they are so concerned about potential criminal penalties.”

Moorhead said it’s easy to forget how integral volunteers are to the function of democracy. She said every voter in Texas is affected by the ramifications of SB 1.

“It’s creating uncertainty and reluctance among the volunteer workforce that we all depend on to make elections run,” she said.

Older and disabled voters

Perhaps the people most affected by SB 1 are Texans who are older or disabled. The combination of confusion over new vote-by-mail rules and criminal penalties aimed at people who help others vote has been a concern ever since the legislation was introduced.

Disability rights groups in Texas sued state officials in federal court over the law, citing violations of both voting rights and disability rights.

Natalie Broussard, a voting rights advocate in the Houston area, said she’s been concerned about how SB 1 will affect older voters.

“I was getting my nails done last week and I overheard a conversation between two older Texans,” she said, “and one was actually saying that she had a family member who was upset because normally her mail-in ballot comes to her automatically.”

This time, the application didn’t come. A provision in SB 1 prohibits local election officials from sending out applications for mail-in ballots without someone requesting one.

Broussard, who has been a poll worker in past elections, said there is a cost to making changes to how people vote; not everyone has someone to help if they are confused or don’t know what to do.

“These are people who may or may not have connections to the community. They may live alone,” she said. “They may be primarily cut off from everyday society. I mean, we just don’t know.”

Broussard looked at the websites state election officials set up for voters to update their voter registration and other information. She said she found the process wasn’t straightforward; it was hard to get answers. Overall, she said, she worried it would be a barrier for older voters.

What this all means

Slattery said he thinks all the issues created by SB 1 are a sign the law is creating more problems than it’s purporting to solve.

Republican lawmakers who pushed for the law said it was an effort to improve the “integrity” of elections in the state, even though there has been no evidence of widespread problems with Texas elections.

Slattery said he thinks all these issues, particularly with vote by mail, had the opposite effect.

“That puts the integrity of the democratic process into question and into question whether this was even a free and fair election,” he said. “And so I think we have to keep looking at this in the days after and come to some kind of reckoning about what these vote-by-mail rules did to our election.”

Voting in Texas has never been easy.

Prior the 2020 presidential election, political scientists from the likes of Northern Illinois University and Wuhan University in China compiled a “cost-of-voting index” that ranked states by the ease in which residents could both register and cast their ballot. The analysis placed Texas dead last, citing the state’s tough voter identification laws, unforgiving registration deadlines, and general “restrictive electoral climate,” all of which made it the hardest state to vote in in the entire country.

And, of course, that was before Texas’ most recent election law overhaul even went into effect.

Despite persistent warnings from civil and voting rights advocates, the state’s Republican-controlled legislature passed the sweeping and far-reaching Senate Bill 1 into law in September 2021. Among other things, the law banned drive-thru and overnight voting, further tightened ID requirements, and allowed partisan poll watchers new freedoms. Additionally, assistants who work with Texans that need help filling out their ballots can now face criminal charges. This type of assistance is most frequently used by voters with disabilities or physical needs, but non-English speaking voters and those who struggle to read and write are also entitled to aid in the state.

Political standing aside, interpretations of the new law shared in a base-level understanding: It was going to get even harder to earn an “I voted” sticker. According to Texas Republicans, the shift was necessary, as the GOP beefs up election integrity protections, citing murky and still unproven reports of rampant voter fraud. For local grassroots voting organizations, however, the focus remains on those who have taken the most direct hit under the new regulations—everyday Texans trying to make sure their vote gets counted.

“All Texas voters are impacted, but especially voters of color, low-income voters, young voters, older voters, and voters with a disability,” says Grace Chimene, president for the League of Women Voters of Texas, a nonpartisan nonprofit that works to educate voters on election issues. Chimene says the law spurred an immediate change, pointing to the March primary election, when 25,000 voters had their vote-by-mail ballots rejected, more than 1,800 from Austin-area counties alone. Those voters were mostly 65 and older, or voters with a disability.

Chimene also says not enough is being done to brief voters on the new requirements or properly prepare them for a successful visit to the polls. In response, the League is taking voter education into their own hands by providing extensive online voter guides and SB 1 explainers. “We’re working with the Center for Civic Design to create more resources provided in simple, plain language,” Chimene says of the group’s efforts.

Those materials have set a new standard and are often utilized by fellow nonprofit organizations like REV UP Texas, which works with Texans with disabilities to ensure they’re well represented within the voting body. Bob Kafka, the group’s statewide coordinator, echoes concerns that Texas’ disabled community is acutely impacted by the new voting legislation, which is breeding further distrust between them and local government. Although it would later be written out, an earlier version of the election bill included even more voting barriers for Texans with disabilities. “They were going to require the person to prove that they had a disability,” Kafka recalls. “It was so blatantly discriminatory; it would almost be like a poll tax. I use a motorized wheelchair, and I would have had to go to a doctor to somehow prove that I have a disability even though I’ve been in this wheelchair for almost 50 years.”

The irony that Gov. Greg Abbott, a well-known member of the state’s disabled community, has continued to champion the new voting law isn’t lost on Kafka. “My disability and spinal cord injury is similar to Gov. Abbott’s. You would think, you know, as a person with a disability, there would be some identity there.”

On top of ongoing efforts to educate voters on their rights and available aid, REV UP Texas will host its third Texas Disability Issues Forum in Austin this September ahead of the November election. The event includes voter registration drives and allows high-profile candidates running for office in the state an opportunity to speak on how their platforms relate to disability issues. While Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke has indicated his plans to attend, Kafka says the group has yet to hear back from Abbott’s office.

Kafka’s main advice to voters who are confused about new voting requirements or who have had their mail-in ballots rejected is to reach out. Whether that be to REV UP, the League of Women Voters, or to your county’s election office, he repeats the importance of not being deterred by the first hurdle.

“Let someone know,” he says. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

The Cutthroat Vote

SB 1’s ramifications on Texas elections and the rest of the country.

• 702, 257: Texans that lacked either a driver’s license or Social Security number on file, as of Dec. 2021.
• 8.2%: The rate at which mail-in ballots in Travis County were rejected during March’s primary election.
• 12.4%: The rate at which mail-in ballots in Texas were rejected during March’s primary election.
• 1%: Comparatively, the rate at which mail-in ballots were rejected during the 2020 presidential election.
• 27: Other states considering similar legislation, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.