The law was passed by Texas Republicans last year. It requires potential voters to submit one of two forms of identification on the application 鈥� either their driver鈥檚 license number or the last four digits of their social security number 鈥� and it has to match whatever was used when voters originally registered.
The deadline for these applications is Friday, February 18. County election offices by that date.
Like in the , North Texas counties have had to reject hundreds of vote-by-mail applications due to the new ID requirements.
-In Tarrant County, 1,323 mail-in ballot applications that were received between Jan. 1 through Feb. 17 have been rejected due to the new law, about 52% of all rejections. Tarrant County Elections Director Heider Garcia said 13,960 good applications have been processed.
-In Collin County, about 300 mail-in ballot applications have been rejected, and 6,949 accepted. Elections Director Bruce Sherbet said almost all the county鈥檚 rejections were related to ID requirements.
-In Dallas County, 1,623 applications were rejected as of Tuesday, and 1,022 of those due to the new law.
鈥淭he majority of these rejections are because of people that didn鈥檛 provide the ID that鈥檚 required of SB 1,鈥� Election Director Michael Scarpello told the Dallas County Commissioners Court.
Earlier this month, the Dallas County Commissioners almost $75,000 to hire a contractor to do outreach to voters, letting them know about the rejections so they can potentially submit new applications for mail-in ballots. Outreach included phone calls, radio ads, and social media messages.
鈥淓verything that the state has done related to SB1 has been thick, thick, hard to read text,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd that鈥檚 why we鈥檙e trying to simplify the messaging to say 鈥� when in doubt, fill it out.鈥�
In other words, fill out all the numbers on a mail-in ballot application so it will match the voter鈥檚 original registration file.
Scarpello said his office has been sending a new mail-in ballot application with rejection letters.
The new ID requirement also applies to the mail-in ballots themselves. ID numbers on the return envelopes must match what鈥檚 on file.
While hundreds of these ballots have been held up because of absent or unmatching ID numbers, voters still have time to fix or 鈥渃ure鈥� them if they visit their county elections office. They can check the status of their ballot by mail applications .
鈥淎ll the ballots that are in questioned status can be cured by the voters if they come into our office and fill out the proper paperwork,鈥� Garcia said.
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