The Texas Secretary of State has released the official numbers of mail-in ballots rejected in the March 1, 2022 party primaries. According to the Secretary of State, 24,363 mail-in ballots were rejected, which constitutes a rejection rate of 12.4 percent. In Texas, due to eligibility restrictions, the overwhelming majority of mail-ballot voters are seniors or voters with disabilities. One in 8 of these mobility impaired voters were disenfranchised.
During the comparable primary in March 2018, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission found less than 2% of mail-in ballots were rejected statewide. Texas Impact also performed its own analysis of the state’s 30 largest counties — covering 80 percent of the state’s population — between March 2016 and May 2020. We found an average rejection rate of 1.62 percent.
The official numbers for the March 2022 primary from the Secretary of State comport with a preliminary estimate performed by the Associated Press in March, which reported that at least 23,000 mail-in ballots had been rejected. The Associated Press used data from 187 of the 254 counties that responded to their public information request.
The Texas Tribune also performed an analysis immediately after the primary and received data back from 16 of the 20 largest counties. In Harris County, All but 31 of the 6,919 ballots were rejected due to the ID requirement in SB 1. In Dallas, 682 of the 694 rejected ballots were due to SB 1. In Hays County 207 of the 208 were rejected due to SB 1. In Williamson County, 73 percent of the 521 rejected were due to SB 1. In El Paso County, 94 percent of 725 were rejected due to SB 1.
In SB 1, the state requires mail-in ballot voters to write a state-ID number on the inside flap of the carrier envelope, and if a voter does not have a state-ID number, then may use the last four digits of their Social Security number. However, 1.9 million voters — about 11 percent of the total — had only one of the two numbers on file with the state.
The Texas Legislature was well aware of the problem. The state’s election administrators repeatedly warned the Legislature. During the July 10, 2021 committee hearing on SB 1, Chris Davis, the election administrator for Williamson County, testified that voters with only one number on file would not remember which number they had registered with since most voters registered many years earlier.
To date, Texas Impact is not aware of any official statement or report from the state of Texas as to the reasons 24,636 voters lost their franchise. However, the State is, or should be, aware of the reasons. Section 87.0431, Election Code, requires Texas counties to provide certified copies of the carrier envelope and corresponding ballot application of rejected ballots to the Attorney General, and Section 87.043, Election Code, requires that a reason for the rejection be written on the carrier envelope.