Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Unfettered voting by mail in Texas stopped by federal appeals court

Texas voters

Texas is among the very few states not making absentee voting easier during the pandemic. Turnout in places like San Antonio, above on primary day in March, is key to Democrats' hopes.

Edward A. Ornelas/Getty Images

A federal appeals court has joined the Texas Supreme Court in deciding that fear of exposure to the coronavirus is not an acceptable reason to vote by mail in the second most-populous state.

The back-to-back decisions, by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday and the state's highest court a week ago, end the possibility for Texans to legally cite a lack of immunity to the virus as a "disability" excuse in requesting an absentee ballot — at least for the July primary runoffs.

There is still a chance the U.S. Supreme Court will step in before the presidential election, when recent polling suggests the state could be genuinely competitive for the first time in four decades. It's also the case that vote-by-mail applications are on an honor system and people should be trusted to assess their own health, the state's top court has made clear.


The fight over making absentee balloting easier in Texas is highly significant to both voting rights groups and the Democrats.

Only 16 states require a precise excuse to use the system, and Texas is among just a handful that have not voluntarily relaxed those rules at least for primaries during the public health crisis. The Republicans who run the state assert widespread fraud would result. There's no solid evidence for the claim, and democracy reform groups see voter suppression as the real motive.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Only 7 percent used absentee ballots in 2018, when they were used by 25 percent of voters nationwide, and Democrats came within a whisker of winning a statewide race (Beto O'Rourke's bid for the Senate) for the first time in a quarter-century. The party is banking on a huge turnout in the cities and suburbs, where the fear of Covid-19 is greatest but the Latino and white-collar professional voting blocs have grown fast, to deliver the state's 38 electoral votes to Joe Biden.

But three judges on the 5th Circuit agreed Thursday to block a trial judge's order last month allowing all 16.2 million registered Texans to vote by mail during the pandemic.

Texans who are older than 65, away from home on election day or in jail may vote absentee — along with those who have a "sickness or physical condition," state law says, that prevents them from appearing at a polling place without the risk of "injuring the voter's health."

Last week the state Supreme Court ruled without dissent that, while lack of immunity alone does not meet that standard, it is up to voters to assess their own health and should not be challenged by county election administrators if they decide they meet the definition of disability.

GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton then pursued his parallel case in federal court, arguing that a late switch of the rules would cause confusion and open up the voting process to abuse — and was the state's decision to make, in any case. The 5th Circuit panel agreed and cited the U.S. Supreme Court's precedent that lower federal courts should "ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election."

The opinion was by Judge Jerry Smith, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan. He was joined by James Ho, an appointee of President Trump, and Gregg J. Costa, an appointee of President Barack Obama.

Paxton hailed their decisions as protecting a system designed "to aid those with an actual disability or illness." He did not explain why he supports the laws's elimination of excuse requirements for everyone 65 and older.

"The Constitution prohibits divvying up our rights by our age, gender, or race — and the 5th Circuit decision of today would allow voters of a certain age different voting rights than the rest of us," chairman Gilberto Hinojosa of the Texas Democratic Party, the plaintiff in the case, said in a statement vowing an appeal.

The last Republican to lose Texas was President Gerald Ford in 1976. But a Quinnipiac poll this week showed Trump, who carried the state by 9 points in 2016, in a statistical tie with Biden — and 6 in 10 voters supporting the availability of mail-in voting for everyone during the pandemic.

Four of the state Supreme Court justices who ruled against that idea are seeking re-election this fall.

July 2 is the last day to apply to vote absentee in runoffs 12 days later.

Read More

"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

Getty Images, Grace Cary

Stopping the Descent Toward Banana Republic Elections

President Trump’s election-related executive order begins by pointing out practices in Canada, Sweden, Brazil, and elsewhere that outperform the U.S. But it is Trump’s order itself that really demonstrates how far we’ve fallen behind. In none of the countries mentioned, or any other major democracy in the world, would the head of government change election rules by decree, as Trump has tried to do.

Trump is the leader of a political party that will fight for control of Congress in 2026, an election sure to be close, and important to his presidency. The leader of one side in such a competition has no business unilaterally changing its rules—that’s why executive decrees changing elections only happen in tinpot dictatorships, not democracies.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Vote" pin.
Getty Images, William Whitehurst

Most Americans’ Votes Don’t Matter in Deciding Elections

New research from the Unite America Institute confirms a stark reality: Most ballots cast in American elections don’t matter in deciding the outcome. In 2024, just 14% of eligible voters cast a meaningful vote that actually influenced the outcome of a U.S. House race. For state house races, on average across all 50 states, just 13% cast meaningful votes.

“Too many Americans have no real say in their democracy,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. “Every voter deserves a ballot that not only counts, but that truly matters. We should demand better than ‘elections in name only.’”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hand Placing Ballot in Box With American Flag
Getty Images, monkeybusinessimages

We Can Fix This: Our Politics Really Can Work – These Stories Show How

As American politics polarizes ever further, voters across the political spectrum agree that our current system is not delivering for the American people. Eighty-five percent of Americans feel most elected officials don’t care what people like them think. Eighty-eight percent of them say our political system is broken.

Whether it’s the quality and safety of their kids’ schools, housing affordability and rising homelessness, scarce and pricey healthcare, or any number of other issues that touch Americans’ everyday lives, the lived experience of polarization comes from such problems—and elected officials’ failure to address them.

Keep ReadingShow less
Why America’s Elections Will Never Be the Same After Trump
text
Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash

Why America’s Elections Will Never Be the Same After Trump

Donald Trump wasted no time when he returned to the White House. Within hours, he signed over 200 executive orders, rapidly dismantling years of policy and consolidating control with the stroke of a pen. But the frenzy of reversals was only the surface. Beneath it lies a deeper, more troubling transformation: presidential elections have become all-or-nothing battles, where the victor rewrites the rules of government and the loser’s agenda is annihilated.

And it’s not just the orders. Trump’s second term has unleashed sweeping deportations, the purging of federal agencies, and a direct assault on the professional civil service. With the revival of Schedule F, regulatory rollbacks, and the targeting of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, the federal bureaucracy is being rigged to serve partisan ideology. Backing him is a GOP-led Congress, too cowardly—or too complicit—to assert its constitutional authority.

Keep ReadingShow less