The Texas primary earlier this month displayed the disastrous effects of Texas’ egregious and un-American restrictive voting law.
The Texas Tribune reported that in Texas’ largest and most diverse counties, ballot rejection rates in the 2022 primary increased significantly, specifically because of Texas Republicans’ anti-voter law. At least 18,000 Texas mail-in votes were rejected in the first election under the new voting rules passed by the Republican-led legislature, with the highest reject rates predominantly in Texas’ most diverse counties.
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In Harris County, 99.5% of the rejected ballots were because of the new restrictive voting law, with 19% of ballots being rejected, up from just 0.3% in the 2018 primary.
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El Paso County was forced to throw out 725 ballots, up from just 39 in the 2020 primary, with 94% of rejections coming from the anti-voter law.
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In Dallas County, 98.2% of the rejected ballots were a result of Texas’ extremist new law.
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In Bexar County, ballot rejection rates increased to 22%.
The Texas GOP politicians who passed this restrictive voting law are getting exactly what they wanted–preventing Texas voters from making their voices heard on issues that matter most to them. The alarming ballot rejection rates in Texas underscore why it is so important to election champions of protecting the freedom to vote, like Beto O’Rourke, who will fight to ensure every Texan can be heard and make change on issues that affect them every day, like fixing Texas’ broken power grid, lowering healthcare costs, and curbing inflation and corporate price gouging.
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