More than 16,000 ballots were rejected in the latest election in Texas.
CBS reports that more than 16,000 ballots were rejected in the recent election in Texas.
Thousands of Texans who tried to vote by mail during this month’s primary elections had their ballots tossed out, many of which were rejected because of issues that voters had in trying to comply with the state’s new voting law.
A CBS News analysis of election data has found that at least 16,800 mail ballots were rejected across 14 of the 25 counties with the most registered voters. That’s about 15% of all mail ballots returned in those counties.
The rejections came in the first major election since Texas Republicans passed a sweeping new election law, known as SB1, after months of objections from Democrats and voting rights advocates. Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill last September.
CBS continues and describes these results in Harris County.
Harris County, the country’s third most populous county and home to Houston, had 6,888 mail-in ballots rejected of the 36,878 returned due to issues complying with the new voting law, according to the Harris County elections department. That’s nearly 19% of all returned mail ballots. Just 31 ballots were rejected for reasons not related to the new voting law.
The number of mail ballots rejected this year far exceeded the rejection rate from the last midterm election primaries. In the 2018 primaries, officials said that just 135 mail ballots were rejected of the 48,473 mail ballots cast, a rejection rate of 0.3%.
Harris County’s elections department says it doubled the staff dedicated to voter outreach and contacting voters if there were issues. But ultimately, only 849 people corrected their ballots — out of the 7,750 flagged for rejection.
We reported previously that the appointed Elections Administrator in Houston resigned effective this summer after the trainwreck of an election in Houston.
After Trainwreck of an Election Last Week, Houston Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria Resigns
Now the question is, how many ballots in the 2020 Election weren’t legitimate in Texas?