Texas governor condemned for shutting sites to drop off postal ballots

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott visits Lake Jackson, Texas on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020. A Houston-area official says it will take 60 days to ensure a city drinking water system is purged of a deadly, microscopic parasite that led to warnings over the weekend not to drink tap water. Lake Jackson City Manager Modesto Mundo said Monday that three of 11 samples of the city’s water indicated preliminary positive results for the naegleria fowleri microbe. (Marie D. De Jesús/Houston Chronicle via AP)

The Republican governor of Texas has ordered counties to have only one postal ballot drop-off site, shutting dozens of locations in some of the state’s largest cities and key Democratic strongholds.

Greg Abbott called his order a move to enhance poll security while Democrats blasted it as a naked effort to suppress voters.

Beginning on October 2, postal ballots delivered in person by eligible voters can be delivered to locations designated by each county’s early voting clerk.

There will be no more than one drop-off location per county. Poll watchers may observe in-person ballot deliveries at each location.

“These enhanced security protocols will ensure greater transparency and will help stop attempts at illegal voting,” Mr Abbott said.

This isn’t security, it’s suppression.

Judge Lina Hidalgo

Harris County, which includes Houston, had 12 drop-off locations for the county’s more than 2 million registered voters as of September.

Travis County, which includes the state capital of Austin, had four.

Harris County covers an area of more than 1,700 square miles while Travis County stretches over more than 1,000 square miles. Other counties are individually as large as 6,000 square miles — larger than the entire state of Connecticut. Texas has 254 counties.

The US Postal Service informed Texas in July that given the state’s current postal ballot request deadline, some ballots may not be delivered to voters by election day, and that even if all ballots reached voters on time, there was a “significant risk” that completed ballots postmarked on or near election day would not be received by the state’s November 4 deadline.

Harris County clerk Chris Hollins said in a statement that he had applauded Mr Abbott’s July proclamation allowing voters to drop off their mail ballots before election day because it “gave voters more options to vote safely during the global pandemic and alleviated concerns over mail delivery”.

He said Mr Abbott’s reversal will harm voters, and lead to widespread confusion and voter suppression.

“Our office is more than willing to accommodate poll watchers at mail ballot drop-off locations,” Mr Hollins said. “But to force hundreds of thousands of seniors and voters with disabilities to use a single drop-off location in a county that stretches over nearly 2,000 square miles is prejudicial and dangerous.”

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said on Twitter that Harris County is larger than the state of Rhode Island and that “this isn’t security, it’s suppression”.

“Mail ballot voters shouldn’t have to drive 30 miles to drop off their ballot, or rely on a mail system that’s facing cutbacks,” Judge Hidalgo said.

Texas Democratic Party chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement following the proclamation that Republicans were “on the verge of losing, so Gov Abbott is trying to adjust the rules last minute”.

He said courts nationwide have held that it is too late to make changes to election rules.

“Make no mistake: democracy itself is on the ballot,” Mr Hinojosa said in a statement.