2026-10-16T09:00:44.844Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/16/politics/gop-voting-restrictions-midterms-invs
当作为得克萨斯州关键摇摆选区一部分的塔兰特县选民准备为中期选举投票时，他们将面临一整套全新的投票规则。
那些获准邮寄选票的选民现在需要提供社会安全号码或州政府签发的身份证件号码。而现场投票的选民会发现，近100个投票站已被关闭——包括一个以黑人和拉丁裔为主的邮政编码区域内的所有投票点。
这类变化并非得克萨斯州独有。
全美各地的共和党议员和官员已在州和地方层面采取措施，让今年11月的投票变得更困难，手段包括出台更严格的登记要求、增设身份证件限制、大幅减少提前投票点、投票站和选票投递箱。
这些在州议会和各县选举委员会推动通过的改革，并未像前总统唐纳德·特朗普试图限制邮寄选票、掌控选民名册的极端举动那样受到同等关注，但它们可能对控制国会的关键选战的投票率产生同样重大的影响。
所有这些新限制都是在2022年上一次中期选举后通过的，可能影响艾奥瓦州、俄亥俄州、北卡罗来纳州和得克萨斯州等州竞争激烈的参议院席位，以及势均力敌的众议院席位。目前民主党需要拿下3个席位才能重掌众议院，拿下4个席位才能掌控参议院。
“许多州正在州一级效仿总统的议程，”其方式影响着“符合资格的选民是否有清晰便捷的途径进行投票”，美国妇女选民联盟首席执行官塞利娜·斯图尔特表示。“在我从事投票权工作的17年里，我从未见过如此广泛且协调一致的限制投票权的行动。”
根据布伦南中心最近的一份报告，与2024年选举相比，至少有22个州的选民面临新的投票障碍。这些新限制是在2020年至2024年间30个州通过的至少78项限制性法律之外新增的。
许多共和党州和地方官员辩称，这些改革有助于提高选举的安全性，经常呼应特朗普反复被揭穿的说法，即选举欺诈猖獗。
得克萨斯州州长格雷格·雅培今年8月在共和党中期选举大会上表示，他的州已通过“美国最严格的选民身份证法”，并强调“我们明确了，在得克萨斯州的选举中，你必须是美国公民才能投票”。
然而，没有证据表明非公民在得克萨斯州或其他任何州大规模投票。选举专家表示，新的限制可能会抑制投票率，因为首次投票的选民更难登记，而没有驾照的选民——比如一些老年人和残疾选民——更难完成投票。
一些地区的这些改革遭到了居民的强烈抗议——包括塔兰特县，在最近一次会议上，众多排队发言的民众恳求委员们不要削减投票站。
9月1日，抗议者在门外聚集时，由共和党控制的县专员法院以3比2的党派投票结果，将投票站减少了近30%——县法官蒂姆·奥黑尔表示，这一改革是为了节省资金。
但反对者称，这些削减将让那些被视为可能在这个竞争激烈的县支持民主党的群体更难投票。
“简和吉姆·克劳法如今在得克萨斯州依然盛行，”致力于保护少数族裔投票权的得克萨斯组织项目执行主任布里安娜·布朗说道。“在得克萨斯州，”她表示，“年轻人和黑棕色人种的人口比例正在上升，因此共和党正在想方设法压低投票参与率。”她指出，黑人和西班牙裔选民占得克萨斯州人口的多数。
类似的情况正在全美上演。
在俄亥俄州，共和党参议员乔恩·赫斯特德与民主党前参议员谢罗德·布朗之间的参议院席位竞争激烈，同时还有众多关键的众议院席位选举，俄亥俄州选民将首次在中期选举中面临全美最严格的选民身份证法之一。
这项由共和党控制的州议会在2023年通过的法律，要求投票必须出示带照片的身份证件，这意味着俄亥俄州选民不能再使用数字身份证、工资单或其他文件作为身份证明，也无法以此证明居住地址。
对于新选民，该法律同样限制了他们可用于登记的文件类型。该法律还缩短了选民申请缺席选票以及更正选票上任何错误的截止日期；并取消了选举日前一天的提前投票。
俄亥俄州选民的选票投递点也将减少。该法律规定每个县只能设置一个投递箱，且仅在办公时间开放，并规定只有有书面证明的残疾选民无法亲自进入投票站时，才能使用路边投票。该法律还规定，除直系亲属外，任何人不得为残疾选民投递选票，少数情况除外。
共和党官员表示，这项法律将保护该州选举的安全性。
“选举诚信是全美两党美国人都高度关注的重要问题，”共和党州长迈克·德温在该法律通过时表示。
身份证限制在很大程度上针对非公民选民，但几乎没有证据表明这类选民数量众多。2024年俄亥俄州务卿办公室对该州820万登记选民的审查发现，通过机动车管理局错误登记投票的非公民有137人，且没有迹象表明其中任何人曾参与投票。
去年，州议会还通过了一项法律，要求缺席选票必须在选举日投票站关闭前送达。此前，只要选票在选举日前盖有邮戳，晚些送达也可被接受。
9月29日，联邦上诉法院恢复了一项条款，要求任何通过机动车管理局尝试登记投票的人提供美国公民身份证明。
该法律还可能影响许多持有外州驾照的大学生，这类驾照在俄亥俄州已不再被用作登记或投票的身份证件。
“学生往往是首次投票的选民。法律规定，如果他们以大学校园地址作为登记投票的地址，在俄亥俄州，你必须出示水电费账单等文件来证明居住地址，”位于华盛顿特区的无党派投票权利组织公平选举中心主席丽贝卡·卡鲁瑟斯表示。“但如果你住在校园里，你不会收到水电费账单。”
俄亥俄州妇女选民联盟执行主任珍·米勒表示，没有驾照的选民必须使用临时选票。因此，她说，俄亥俄州今年的临时选票数量位居全国前列。
批评者表示，投递箱限制尤其损害了大型城市地区的选民——这一人口统计事实将特别影响俄亥俄州主要城市的黑人选民。
“想想克利夫兰所在的凯霍加县，让超过100万人只能有一个地方投递选票。这就是你想让人们更难投票时会做的事，”卡鲁瑟斯说道。
在北卡罗来纳州，民主党人希望通过前两届州长罗伊·库珀与共和党全国委员会前主席迈克尔·沃特利的竞争拿下参议院席位。
众多众议院席位也可能易主，包括共和党州众议员珍妮·鲍尔科姆与民主党人杰米·阿杰尔之间的竞选。两人都将接替众议员查克·爱德华兹，后者在道德委员会发现他多次对两名女性工作人员做出不当行为的证据后退出了国会。
正如美国有线电视新闻网最近报道的那样，州和地方共和党领导人已致力于大幅限制该州的投票权——包括大幅削减周日投票，并对邮寄选票的处理方式施加新的限制。
共和党控制的州议会还在2024年将州选举委员会的管理权从州长（民主党人）转移到州审计官（共和党人）手中，后者随后可以任命共和党人担任州委员会和每个县选举委员会的控权职位。
今年，这些县选举委员会投票决定不在各类大学校园附近或内部设置提前投票点，包括美国最大的历史黑人学院和大学北卡罗来纳农工州立大学，以及北卡罗来纳大学格林斯博罗分校等。
州选举委员会主席弗朗西斯·德卢卡今年1月表示，他反对在大学校园设置投票点，因为那里停车位有限。
学生们强烈反对这些改革，包括在北卡罗来纳农工州立大学和北卡罗来纳大学格林斯博罗分校所在的吉尔福德县，但并未奏效。
“学生们已经数月来参加吉尔福德县选举委员会的会议。这两所学校都有大量在校人口，且靠近大量没有车辆的居民区域，”北卡罗来纳州共同事业项目主管泰勒·戴伊说道。
在罗利的北卡罗来纳州立大学，韦克县选举委员会以党派投票结果，今年将提前投票点从校园中心的塔利学生联盟迁至一英里外、穿过一条繁忙大道的一栋建筑内。
各委员会还在23个县取消了周日提前投票。周日投票历来对黑人教堂意义重大，这些教堂会组织信徒在礼拜后投票。州选举委员会主席德卢卡表示，他反对周日投票，因为“那是主的日子”。
艾奥瓦州：老年公民与身份证件
在艾奥瓦州，最近两份对可能选民的民调显示，民主党参议院候选人、州众议员兼两届残奥会金牌得主乔希·图雷克与共和党现任众议员阿什利·辛森的支持率不相上下。该州还有三个竞争激烈的众议院席位选举。
2025年，艾奥瓦州成为最早同意使用联邦SAVE公民身份核查数据库的州之一，该数据库曾将符合资格的选民误判为非公民。
今年5月，共和党州长金·雷诺兹签署了一项法案，修改了艾奥瓦州的“证明”法——该法律允许选区的其他选民为没有持允许身份证件前来投票的人的资格提供担保。现在，这些选民必须使用临时选票，并在选举日后的周一前出示有效身份证件，其选票才能被计入。
艾奥瓦市民主党州众议员亚当·扎布纳告诉美国有线电视新闻网：“我对共和党在投票问题上的议程，特别是这项法案，感到担忧。”
他表示，“大多数利用这一制度的人是不再开车、没有驾照的老年艾奥瓦人，他们会有家庭成员为他们担保。”他指出，根据旧法律，任何虚假证明他人身份的人都将承担刑事责任。
堪萨斯州在2024年以57%的选票支持特朗普，但自1932年以来就没有选出过民主党籍联邦参议员。但如今，现任共和党参议员罗杰·马歇尔与民主党候选人、联合卫理公会牧师亚当·汉密尔顿之间的竞选势均力敌。
今年，任期将满的民主党州长劳拉·凯利否决了共和党控制的州议会通过的多项投票限制法案。
但议员们推翻了她的否决，通过了《SAVE堪萨斯法案》，该法案扩大了清除选民名册的方法，限制第三方参与选民登记，并要求州机构与堪萨斯州务卿共享领取州福利的非公民数据。
议员们还推翻了凯利对一项新州法律的否决，该法律取消了邮寄选票送达选举办公室的三天宽限期。新法律要求邮寄选票必须在选举日当晚7点前送达选举办公室才能被计入。
但今年7月，堪萨斯州最高法院维持了下级法院的裁决，在针对该法律的诉讼审理期间，禁止该法律生效。
在得克萨斯州，最近的民调显示，民主党州众议员詹姆斯·塔拉里科与州检察长肯·帕克斯顿之间的参议院竞选没有明确的领先者。帕克斯顿在共和党初选中击败了参议员约翰·康yn，在2023年被得克萨斯州众议院弹劾后经参议院无罪释放，实现了复出。
这场竞选的关键战场是塔兰特县，该州人口第三多的县，2020年总统乔·拜登以微弱优势胜出，2024年特朗普将其夺回。
今年9月，共和党籍塔兰特县专员投票将提前投票地点从上次中期选举的50个缩减至47个，选举日投票地点从316个缩减至224个。他们还拒绝了在五个校区设置投票点的请求。根据一份寻求恢复投票点的诉讼，76103邮政编码区域内将完全没有投票点。根据人口普查数据，该邮政编码区域76%的人口为黑人或西班牙裔。
共和党人、该县首席政务官奥黑尔在会议前的一份新闻稿中回应批评称，这些改革会让学生和少数族裔选民更难前往投票点，他表示“塔兰特县的任何选民都不应觉得自己没有足够的时间投票”，并称“这是一项旨在确保这一点的合理计划”。
10月2日，沃斯堡市议会成员以私人公民身份而非市议员身份，向州地区法院提起诉讼，要求恢复9月被削减的92个投票点。
“他们系统性地采取行动，让有色人种、低收入地区的选民和民主党地区的选民更难投票，”提起诉讼的黛博拉·皮普尔斯说道。“我们不能坐视不管，必须站出来发声。”
奥黑尔的竞选顾问尼克·马杜克斯驳斥了该诉讼，称其旨在帮助与奥黑尔竞争的塔兰特县专员艾丽莎·西蒙斯。“塔兰特县选民不会被这些伎俩蒙蔽，”马杜克斯在一份声明中说道。
一名法官本周驳回了恢复投票点的请求。
得克萨斯州今年的其他一些改革也因诉讼挑战而处于不确定状态。今年8月，第五巡回上诉法院裁定，邮寄投票和协助投票的限制将在今年11月适用于全州。
得克萨斯州不允许全民邮寄投票，但65岁以上的选民和部分残疾人士等可以邮寄投票。现在，他们必须提供与州记录匹配的社会安全号码或身份证件号码，其邮寄选票才能被接受；任何帮助残疾选民的人必须披露与选民的关系，签署未胁迫选民的誓言，并披露是否获得了报酬。
与此同时，据Votebeat首次报道，得克萨斯州公共安全部最近因发现未能处理至少50万份通过其在线驾照门户提交的选民登记申请（部分申请提交已长达一年），向全州众多县的登记员发送了积压的选民登记申请。
得克萨斯州县选举官员协会执行主任克里斯·麦金表示，全州各县自9月中旬以来一直在加班加点处理积压案件。他说，“据我们所知，所有积压案件都已更新，所有选民都应出现在登记选民名单上”，并表示提前投票将于10月19日开始。
全美范围内，今年秋季影响选民的许多新法律“旨在解决一个根本不存在的问题”，布伦南中心投票权与选举项目高级主任肖恩·莫拉莱斯-多伊尔表示。
“剥夺选举权——即剥夺一个人的宪法投票权——是一个问题，无论它是否影响选举结果，”他说。“它还可能产生选举之外的后果，影响当选官员觉得有义务代表和回应哪些群体的利益。”
GOP states have made it harder to vote. The changes could swing tight races
2026-10-16T09:00:44.844Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/16/politics/gop-voting-restrictions-midterms-invs
When voters in Tarrant County, part of a key swing district in Texas, prepare to cast ballots for the midterms, they’ll encounter a whole new set of rules.
Those allowed to send mail-in ballots will now need to provide a Social Security or state ID number. And in-person voters will find that nearly 100 polling places have been shuttered – including all sites in one zip code that’s mostly Black and Latino.
Those kind of changes aren’t unique to Texas.
Republican lawmakers and officials around the country have taken steps at the state and local level to make it harder to vote this November, from enacting stricter registration requirements to adding ID restrictions to dramatically reducing early voting sites, polling places and ballot drop-boxes.
These changes, pushed through state Capitols and county boards of election, have not received the same attention as President Donald Trump’s dramatic attempts to curb mail voting and assert control over voting rolls, but they could have just as significant an impact on turnout in key races to control Congress.
The new restrictions, all passed since the last midterm election in 2022, could affect highly competitive Senate races in states including Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina and Texas, as well as toss-up House races, as Democrats seek three seats to retake the House and four to win the Senate.
“Many states are emulating the president’s agenda at the state level,” in ways that affect “whether eligible voters have a clear accessible path to cast a ballot,” said Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters. “In 17 years of working on voting rights, I have never seen such a widespread and coordinated effort to restrict access to the ballot.”
Voters in at least 22 states face new hurdles in casting their ballots compared with the 2024 election, according to a recent Brennan Center report. These new restrictions come on top of at least 78 restrictive laws passed by 30 states between 2020 and 2024.
Many GOP state and local officials have argued that the changes are needed to help make elections more secure, often echoing Trump’s repeatedly debunked claims that voting fraud runs rampant.
Speaking in August at the Republican midterm convention, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said his state had adopted “the toughest voter ID law in the United States of America,” and that “we made clear that in elections in Texas, you have to be a United States citizen to vote.”
However, there’s no evidence non-citizens have voted in Texas or any other states in significant numbers. Election experts say the new restrictions could depress turnout by making it harder for first-time voters to register and for those without driver’s licenses – such as some seniors and disabled voters – to cast ballots.
The changes in some locales are being made over significant protests from residents – including in Tarrant County, where many of those in a long line of speakers at a recent meeting pleaded with commissioners not to cut polling sites.
As protesters massed outside on September 1, the GOP-controlled county commissioners court voted 3-2 along party lines to reduce polling sites by nearly 30 percent – a change that County Judge Tim O’Hare said was needed to save money.
Opponents, though, said the cuts will make it harder to vote for groups seen as likely to back Democrats in the highly competitive county.
“Jane and Jim Crow are very much alive in Texas today,” said Brianna Brown, Executive Director of the Texas Organizing Project, which works to protect minority voting rights. “In Texas,” she said, “the demographics of young people and black and brown people are increasing, so the GOP is looking at ways to shrink participation.” She noted that Black and Hispanic voters make up a majority of the Texas population.
Similar dynamics are playing out across the country.
In Ohio, which features a tight Senate race between GOP Sen. Jon Husted and former Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Democrat, as well as numerous key House races, Buckeye voters will confront one of the nation’s strictest voter ID laws for the first time in a midterm.
That law, passed by the GOP-controlled legislature in 2023,requires a photo ID to vote, meaning Ohioans can no longer use digital IDs, paychecks or other documents as identification, or to prove residency.
For new voters, it similarly limits the kind of documents they can use to register. The law also shortened the deadlines for voters to request absentee ballots, and to fix any errors on their ballots; and it eliminated early voting the Monday before Election Day.
Ohio voters will also have fewer places to drop off ballots. The law limits each county to one drop box, open only during business hours, and says only voters with a documented disability who can’t physically enter a polling place can use curbside voting. It also made it a crime for anyone other than an immediate family member to drop off a ballot for a disabled voter, with some exceptions.
GOP officials said the law would protect the security of elections in the state.
“Elections integrity is a significant concern to Americans on both sides of the aisle across the country,” said Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, at the time it passed.
The ID restrictions in large part target non-citizen voters, but there’s little evidence such voters exist in large numbers. In a 2024 review of the state’s 8.2 million registered voters, the Ohio Secretary of State’s office found 137 non-citizens wrongly registered to vote through the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. There was no indication any of them had voted.
Last year, the legislature also adopted a law that requires absentee ballots to arrive before polls close on Election Day. Previously, ballots could arrive later, as long as they were postmarked by Election Day.
On Sept. 29, a federal appeals court reinstated a provision that requires proof of US citizenship from anyone trying to register to vote through the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
The law could also affect many college students who have out-of-state driver’s licenses, which are no longer acceptable ID in Ohio to register or vote.
“Students are often first-time voters. The law says if they are residents on a college campus, they can use that address to register to vote. In Ohio, you have to show a utility bill,” as one option to prove where you live, said Rebekah Caruthers, president of Fair Elections Center, a nonpartisan voting-rights groups based in Washington, DC. “But if you live on campus, you don’t get utility bills.”
Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, said that voters who don’t have driver’s licenses must use provisional ballots. As a result, she said, Ohio has some of the highest provisional ballot counts in the country this year.
Critics say the drop box limitations particularly hurt voters in large urban areas – a demographic fact that will impact Black voters in particular in major Ohio cities.
“Think about Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is, to say more than a million people should have only one place to drop off their ballot. That is what you do when you want to make it harder for people to vote,” said Caruthers.
In North Carolina, Democrats hope to flip a Senate seat with two-term former Gov. Roy Cooper polling strongly against Michael Whatley, a former Republican National Committee chair.
Numerous House seats also could change parties,including in a race between Republican state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom and Democrat Jamie Ager. Both are seeking to replace Rep. Chuck Edwards, who dropped out of Congress after an ethics panel found evidence he repeatedly made unwanted advances toward two female staffers.
As CNN recently reported, state and local GOP leaders have worked to significantly restrict voting in the state – including by sharply cutting back on Sunday voting and imposing new restrictions on how mail-in ballots are processed.
The GOP-controlled legislature also transferred authority in 2024 over the state board of elections from the governor, a Democrat, to the state auditor, a Republican, who could then appoint Republicans to controlling positions on the state board and every county board of elections.
This year, those county elections boards voted not to have early-voting polling places near or on a variety of college campuses, including at North Carolina A&T State University, the nation’s largest historically Black college or university, and UNC-Greensboro, among others.
Francis De Luca, chairman of the State Board of Elections, said in January that he opposed voting sites on university campuses because they had limited parking.
Students have pushed back hard against the changes, including in Guilford County, home to North Carolina A&T and UNC-Greensboro, to no avail.
“Students have been attending meetings at the Guildford County Board of Elections for months. Both have significant on-campus populations and are close to areas with a significant number of residents who don’t have access to a vehicle,” said Tyler Daye, program manager for Common Cause North Carolina.
At North Carolina State University, in Raleigh, the Wake County Board of Elections voted along party lines to move the early voting site this year from the Talley Student Union, at the center of campus, to a building a mile away and across a busy boulevard.
Boards also eliminated Sunday early voting in 23 counties. Sunday voting historically is important to Black churches that organize members to vote after services. De Luca, the state election board chairman, said that he opposed voting on Sunday because, “it’s the Lord’s Day.”
Iowa: Elderly citizens and IDs
In Iowa, two recent polls of likely voters show Democratic Senate nominee Josh Turek, a state house representative and two-time Paralympic gold medalist, running neck-and-neck with three-term GOP Rep. Ashley Hinson. There are also three competitive House races in the state.
In 2025, Iowa became among the earliest states to agree to use the federal SAVE citizenship-verification database, which has misidentified eligible voters as non-citizens.
In May, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law a bill that changed Iowa’s “attestation” law, which allowed a fellow voter from the district to vouch for the eligibility of someone who shows up to vote without a permitted ID. Now, those voters must use a provisional ballot and return by the Monday after Election Day with a valid ID to have their vote counted.
State Rep. Adam Zabner, a Democrat from Iowa City, told CNN, “I have concerns about the Republican agenda on voting and on this bill in particular.”
He said that “most people who take advantage of this system are older Iowans who no longer drive, don’t have driver’s licenses, and come in with family members who attest for them.” He noted that, under the old law, anyone falsely attesting to someone’s identity would have been criminally liable.
Kansas, which Trump won with 57% of the vote in 2024, hasn’t elected a Democrat to the US Senate since 1932. But now the race between incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall and Democrat Adam Hamilton, a United Methodist pastor, is neck and neck.
This year, term-limited Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, vetoed several bills passed by the GOP-controlled legislature that would have enacted voting restrictions.
But lawmakers overrode her veto to enact the SAVE Kansas Act, which expands methods for purging voter rolls, restricts third-party efforts to register voters, and orders state agencies to share, with the Kansas Secretary of State, data on non-citizens receiving state benefits.
Lawmakers also overrode Kelly’s veto of a new state law that eliminated the three-day grace period for mail-in ballots to arrive at election offices. The new law would require mail-in ballots to arrive at election offices by 7 p.m. on Election Day to be counted.
But in July, the Kansas Supreme Court let stand a lower-court ruling that blocks that law from taking effect while a lawsuit against it is being litigated.
In Texas, recent polls show no clear leader in the Senate race between Democrat James Talarico, a state representative, and state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who defeated Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary, marking a comeback after being impeached by the Texas House but acquitted by the Senate in 2023.
A key battleground in that race is Tarrant County, the state’s third most populous county, which President Joe Biden narrowly won in 2020 but Trump flipped back in 2024.
In September, Republican Tarrant County commissioners voted to cut early voting locations to 47 from 50 in the last midterm, and election day voting locations to 224 from 316. They also denied requested polling locations on five campuses. There also will be no polling places at all within the 76103 zip code, according to a lawsuit seeking to restore polling places. In that zip code, 76% of the population is Black or Hispanic, according to census data.
O’Hare, a Republican and the county’s chief political officer, said in a press release before the meeting, responding to criticism that the changes would make it harder for students and minority voters to get to the polls, that “no Tarrant County voter should ever feel they don’t have enough time to vote,” and that “this is a sensible plan designed to ensure that.”
On Oct. 2, a Fort Worth City Council member filed suit in state district court seeking to reinstate the 92 voting sites cut in September.
“What they have done is systematically gone through and made it harder for people of color, people in lower economic areas and people in Democratic areas to vote,” said Deborah Peoples, who said she filed the suit as a private citizen, not a city council member. “This was something we could not sit idly by and not speak up about.”
O’Hare’s campaign adviser Nick Maddux dismissed the suit as intended to benefit Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons, who is running against O’Hare. “Tarrant County voters will not be fooled by these shenanigans,” Maddux said in a statement.
A judge this week denied the request to reinstate the sites.
Some other changes across Texas this year also remain in flux due to court challenges. In August, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that mail-in and assisted voting restrictions will apply statewide this November.
Texas doesn’t allow universal vote-by-mail, but voters over 65 and those with certain disabilities, among others, can do so. They’ll now have to provide a Social Security or identification number matching state records for their mail-in ballot to be accepted; and anyone helping a disabled voter will have to disclose their relationship to the voter, sign an oath they didn’t coerce the voter, and disclose whether they received compensation.
Meanwhile, as first reported by Votebeat, Texas Department of Public Safety recently flooded numerous county registrars across the state with backlogged voter registration applications after discovering it had failed to process at least 500,000 applications submitted through its online driver’s license portal, some up to a year earlier.
Chris McGinn, executive director of the Texas Association of County Election Officials, said that counties across the state have been working overtime since mid-September to clear up the backlog. He said that “from what we’re hearing, all the backlog has been updated and all the voters should show on the list of registered voters” by the time early voting begins on Oct. 19.
Across the country, many of the new laws affecting voters this fall “are aimed at solving a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, senior director of voting rights and elections programs at the Brennan Center.
“Disenfranchisement – the denial of a person’s constitutional right to vote – is a problem whether or not it swings the outcome of an election,” he said. “It can also have consequences beyond the election itself, shaping whose interests elected officials feel compelled to represent and respond to.”