the runoff, so you will see that peo- ple kind of learned the system pretty quick,” Sullivan said. Clear Creek ISD’s election lawsuit Elaina Polsen, chief communica- tions officer for Clear Creek ISD, said the new guidelines from SB 1 caused an influx of mail-in ballot rejections in its May 7 election, in which 380 bal- lots, or 18.67% of mail-in ballots, were rejected in total. Polsen said the elec- tion process followed all of the rules from SB 1 and that the addition of the new mail-in ballot application and voter registration card verification step made the process more difficult. “If there is no phone number on the forms, then you have no way of con- tacting [the voters],” she said. The official results of the May 7 election showed the CCISD board of trustees Position 1 seat was won by Jessica Cejka with 1,290 votes over Misty Dawson’s 1,247 votes, a differ- ence of 43 votes. Dawson proceeded June 30 to file a lawsuit disputing the election results, alleging 15 mail-in voters were prevented from voting and 19 mail-in votes were from outside the District 1 boundaries, according to the lawsuit. “Since the number of voters pre- vented from voting and the number of illegal votes counted exceeds the dif- ference in the number of votes between [Dawson] and [Cejka], this court can- not ascertain the true outcome of the contested election and must declare it void,” the lawsuit stated. Polsen said Dawson did not call for a recount of votes after the unofficial election results were released. She said Dawson was able to examine all cast ballots July 26, which resulted in Dawson conceding the alleged CCISD errors in counting election results could not be proven to change the election results, leading to a judge dismissing the lawsuit Aug. 17. Adapting to new rules After its unprecedented spike in mail-in rejections in May, CCISD plans to engage in voter outreach efforts to educate voters on how to properly submit mail-in ballots ahead of the May 2023 election, Polsen said. Board of trustees candidate filing for the school district starts in January. Along with the mail-in ballot changes in SB 1 comes some changes to the role of a poll watcher in the state. Shah said the parameters around what a poll watcher can and cannot do within a polling center
According to local election administrators, the most common errors cited resulting in rejected mail-in ballots have been voters failing to provide identification numbers on applications and failing to provide matching identification numbers on ballots.
REJECTION RATES
SOURCES: HARRIS COUNTY ELECTIONS ADMINISTRATOR, TEXAS SECRETARY OF STATE/ COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
STEP 1
STEP 2
SAMPLE MAIL-IN BALLOT APPLICATION
SAMPLE MAIL-IN BALLOT
Texas Driver’s License, Texas Personal Identification Number or Election Identification Certificate Number issued by the Department of Public Safety (NOT your voter registration Voter Unique Identifier Number) YOU MUST PROVIDE ONE of the following numbers
FOLD LINE
Signature
If you do not have a Texas Driver’s License, a Texas Personal Identification Number or a Texas Election Identification Certificate Number, give the last four digits of your Social Security number.
Required information: You must provide one of the following:
Driver's license, personal ID or election ID
Last four digits of Social Security number
I have not been issued a driver's license or ID
I have not been issued a Texas Driver’s License/ Texas Personal Identification Number/Texas Election Identification Certificate or Social Security Number
Phone: OPTIONAL CONTACT INFORMATION: Email:
Texas driver’s license number Texas state ID number Last four digits of their Social Security number Election ID certificate number APPLICATION REQUIREMENT: ID NUMBERS A new law requires individuals who vote by mail to include one of the following identification numbers on their applications:
Provide optional contact information to expedite the correction process. Visit www.votetexas.gov/voting-by-mail/track-my-ballot.html to track ballot status and correct errors on ballots. BALLOT REQUIREMENT: MATCHING ID NUMBERS A new law requires individuals who vote by mail to include the same number submitted on their applications on their ballots. Election officials offered mail-in ballot voters the following tips:
Commission, as the new elections administrator July 5. Shah said the rejections impacted senior citizens and voters with dis- abilities due to the eligibility rules in Texas, which require mail-in voters to be either at least 65 years old, sick, disabled, out of the country, expected to give birth, or confined to jail but eli- gible to vote. “We’re getting a lot of calls from seniors specifically saying like, ‘Why would I write my Social Security num- ber on a piece of paper and send it through the mail? I’ve been told not to do this,’” Shah said. Galveston County did not experi- ence the challenges Harris County faced to the same degree due to a difference in the volume of votes, Galveston County Clerk Dwight Sul- livan said. He said Galveston County is much smaller, so election officials could reach out to more people with mail-in ballot issues. In the May 24 runoff elections after the spike in rejections March 1, Galveston County’s rejection rates dropped from 12.37% to 2.35%. Simi- larly, Harris County’s rates decreased from 19.2% to 7.4%. “In the March 1 primary we had a higher rejection rate than we did in
of the required identification num- bers but the voter’s voter registra- tion record does not contain either number, the early-voting clerk must reject the ABBM and promptly notify the voter of the rejection,” Director of Elections Keith Ingram said in an elec- tions advisory letter Jan. 28. E ects on counties Leah Shah, director of communi- cations and voter outreach at Harris County, said about 89% of mail-in ballots in the March primaries were initially flagged for rejection. After a wave of corrections, the percentage of ballots rejected decreased to 19.2%. “[The rejections] also resulted internally in a swell of phone calls. We had to scale up both our mail bal- lot team and our call center team to handle the influx—almost double in order to accommodate the issues,” Shah said. The county saw a variety of chal- lenges during the primaries, including up to 10,000 mail-in ballots that were not counted in time, causing former Harris County Elections Administra- tor Isabel Longoria to announce her resignation. Harris County selected Clifford Tatum, former general coun- sel for the U.S. Election Assistance
CONTINUED FROM 1
or 6,934 ballots, and Galveston County rejected 12.37%, or 435 ballots. In the following May elections, the per- centage of rejected mail-in ballots dropped as voters and election offi- cials adapted to new guidelines, and county officials plan to participate in outreach efforts to lower rejections further by November. One of the new requirements from SB 1, the voting reform bill, is the addi- tion of reconciliation reports, in which counties must compare the number of valid voters with the total number of ballots counted. Texas secretary of state spokesperson Sam Taylor said this allows for more transparency. “The reconciliation form that was added in SB 1 has been the biggest help for our office in terms of hunt- ing down any issues that we see in the reporting of results,” Taylor told Community Impact Newspaper. Another part of the bill states appli- cations for ballot by mail, or ABBM, can be rejected if the information provided, such as a driver’s license number or a Social Security number, cannot be verified on the voter’s reg- istration form. “If the voter provides one or both
24
COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER • COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM
Powered by FlippingBook