Early estimates were that voting by mail was down 40% in this primary election, and that had to hurt Republican candidates proportionately more. Many older Texans vote by mail for Republican candidates — if they can, that is. But with so many mailed ballots rejected this year, mostly because the voter didn’t put the proper ID number on the return envelope, that had to affect Republican candidates.
By the end of early voting on Friday, about 76,000 mail ballots had been processed in Texas’ 15 most populous counties. That’s about 0.7% of the registered voters in those counties. But four years ago, the total for mail ballots was 126,000 for those counties— about 1.3% of their voters.
That’s a 40% decline, although the individual numbers could be different in other counties. But if that was the experience in the 15 largest counties, that scenario probably played out over much of the state.
Granted, some of the people who wanted to vote by mail went ahead and voted in person. But many people vote by mail because they are elderly or disabled; it’s just not that easy for them to get around. A lot of them probably gave up in frustration and didn’t vote in this primary election.
When Republicans rammed through the changes in “election security” last year despite a Democratic walkout that tried to prevent it, they promised to make it “easy to vote and hard to cheat.”
While it was never easy to cheat at the voting booth — and study after study has found only a few cases out of millions of ballots — it appears that voting by mail wasn’t easy either.
Maybe the numbers will improve in future elections for mail voting as Texans get more familiar with the new requirements. They have to include either their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number on the return envelope.
Some didn’t put down any number. Some used one number when the other one was registered with their county clerk. Others simply couldn’t find the field on the envelope where that number should be entered because it was under the envelope flap.
Voting by mail in Texas is not as widespread as it should be. In many states, anyone who wants to vote by mail can do so if they request that option. Texas should let voters choose the format that’s right for them. But either way, the process shouldn’t be too burdensome, and the experience of this year’s primary shows that lawmakers need to work on the “easy” part of voting.