• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Events
  • Civic Ed
  • Campaign Finance
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • Independent Voter News
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Voting>
  3. drop box>

Latest Texas ballot curbs: Fewer drop boxes and no speedy  'one punch' voting

David Hawkings
October 02, 2020
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and President Donald Trump

Gov. Greg Abbott, in the Oval Office in May, issued new restrictions after President Trump leveled fresh unfounded allegations of voting fraud at this week's debate.

Pool/Getty Images

Just one drop box for voters in Houston, in the fourth most populous county in the nation, its 4.7 million people ranking just behind Alabama to be 25th in population were it a state. And just one place to deposit a ballot early in Brewster County, at 6,200 square miles bigger than three states, and where it's 90 minutes through the desert to get from the county seat to the next-biggest town.

That is what Gov. Greg Abbott has commanded: Starting Friday, none of the 254 counties in Texas can offer more than a single place to return an absentee ballot.

Assuming it survives a promised lawsuit, the Republican's executive order would amount to the most assertive state government effort to restrict voting in new ways this fall. Further hobbling the prospects for significant turnout and a smooth election, in what has become the nation's biggest presidential battleground, a federal appeals court has reinstated a prohibition on Texans voting in a matter of seconds by casting a straight-ticket ballot.


Nine weeks ago, Abbott surprised many voting rights groups when he added six more days for early in-person voting and expanded the system for absentee ballot drop-offs in response to the coronavirus pandemic. His new order alters those directives in ways he described as necessary to guard against "attempts at illegal voting."

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Abbott acted after President Trump — who has only a narrow polling lead in the race for the state's 38 electoral votes — used this week's debate to amplify his sowing of distrust in the election by making baseless assertions about fraud permeating the world of remote voting.

In addition, fellow Republicans in Texas have sued to stop the additional voting days.

The state Democratic Party called the one-box-per-county edict "a blatant voter suppression tactic" that would disproportionately hurt the party's Black and Latino supporters, most of whom live in the state's six urban counties with more than a million people each.

"Republicans are on the verge of losing, so Gov. Abbott is trying to adjust the rules last minute," party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement. "Make no mistake, democracy itself is on the ballot. Every Texan must get out and vote these cowards out!"

Late Thursday the League of United Latin American Citizens and the League of Women Voters sued to prevent the state from changing its mind so close to the election, when thousands of people have already returned their ballots. Houston's Harris County has had a dozen drop-off sites.

Unlike the drop box systems of many states that rely on secure containers in government buildings or are sometimes monitored by surveillance cameras or local police, the Texas system requires voters to show a photo ID and then hand their sealed ballot envelopes to a county elections official. And Abbott's new order makes clear that registered partisan poll watchers must be on hand to observe.

At the debate, Trump called for his supporters to act as unofficial poll watchers and to "watch very carefully, because that's what has to happen."

Those who are permitted to observe will now see something different than they might have just a week ago.

That's when a federal judge declared that, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the state would have to preserve its century-old practice of allowing voters to cast a single vote in favor of all the candidates on the ballot from one political party.

It's an option that has sped as many as two-thirds of Texas voters through the polls in minutes in recent years, but which the GOP Legislature did away with starting this November. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals late Wednesday reversed the judge and said the switch could take effect — ruling it was too close to Election Day to change the system again, now that thousands of ballots have been printed, and machines programmed, without the party-line option.

Democrats fear the loss of "one punch" voting, as many Texans call it, will produce enormous lines that will dissuade thousands of voting on Nov. 3, especially in the urban counties, where ballots often include dozens of county and municipal judicial contests.

Unchanged is how Texas remains one of just five states where voters must provide an excuse unrelated to Covid-19 to get an absentee ballot — for return either at one of the locations or through the mail. The only allowable reasons are being older than 65, disabled or away from home when early-in-person voting starts Oct 13 through Election Day.

Texas has become a top-flight national focus in a presidential election year for the first time in decades. Thanks in large measure to the state's demographic shift, mainly the growth of the Latino and well-educated white suburban voting blocs, former Vice President Joe Biden is much closer to carrying the state than any Democrat since Jimmy Carter won it narrowly in 1976. Democrats are also in position to pick up four congressional seats and have a shot at taking the state House for the first time in 18 years.

From Your Site Articles
  • Texas judge reinstates straight-ticket voting - The Fulcrum ›
  • Unfettered voting by mail in Texas stopped by federal appeals court ... ›
  • Texas ruling on absentee voting assures more confusion - The ... ›
  • Normally tight Texas extends early voting - The Fulcrum ›
  • Texas to begin early in-person voting next week - The Fulcrum ›
  • Texas Dems block voting restrictions, but amp up dysfunction - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Gov. Greg Abbott shutters drop-off locations for Texans voting by mail ›
  • Texas move on mail-in voting stirs new suppression fears ... ›
  • Texas' 2020 election won't have straight-ticket voting, appeals court ... ›
  • Texas early voting starts Oct. 13. Here's what you need to know ... ›
  • Voting Issues for Texas Harvey Evacuees ›
drop box

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Reform in 2023: Leadership worth celebrating

Layla Zaidane

Two technology balancing acts

Dave Anderson

Reform in 2023: It’s time for the civil rights community to embrace independent voters

Jeremy Gruber

Congress’ fix to presidential votes lights the way for broader election reform

Kevin Johnson

Democrats and Republicans want the status quo, but we need to move Forward

Christine Todd Whitman

Reform in 2023: Building a beacon of hope in Boston

Henry Santana
Jerren Chang
latest News

Becoming the (healthy) fungus among us

Debilyn Molineaux
21h

Podcast: God squad: Let friendship redeem the republic

Our Staff
21h

Facebookopoly

Seth David Radwell
22h

Does partisanship impact happiness?

Lynn Schmidt
07 February

Return copyright to its roots: Compensate human creators

Samantha Close
07 February

It’s the institutional design, stupid! With a parliamentary system, America could avoid gridlock and instability

Milind Thakar
06 February
Videos

Video: America's civic education gap: What can business do?

Our Staff

Video: What does it mean to be Black?

Our Staff

Video: The dignity index

Our Staff

Video: The Supreme Court and originalism

Our Staff

Video: How the baby boom changed American politics

Our Staff

Video: What the speakership election tells us about the 118th Congress webinar

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: God squad: Let friendship redeem the republic

Our Staff
21h

Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Our Staff
06 February

Podcast: Anti-racism: The pro-human approach

Our Staff
03 February

Podcast: 2024 Senate: Democrats have a lot of defending to do

Our Staff
02 February
Recommended
Becoming the (healthy) fungus among us

Becoming the (healthy) fungus among us

Big Picture
Podcast: God squad: Let friendship redeem the republic

Podcast: God squad: Let friendship redeem the republic

Podcasts
Facebookopoly

Facebookopoly

Big Picture
Does partisanship impact happiness?

Does partisanship impact happiness?

Big Picture
Return copyright to its roots: Compensate human creators

Return copyright to its roots: Compensate human creators

Business & Democracy
Video: America's civic education gap: What can business do?

Video: America's civic education gap: What can business do?