AUSTIN, Texas — New data shared by the Office of the Texas Secretary of State shows that mail-in ballot rejections decreased between the March primary elections to the latest primary runoffs in May.
According to the data, the statewide mail-in ballot rejection rate was less than 4% in the primary runoffs. That's down from more than 12% in the March primary elections.
Looking at the numbers, a total of 24,636 mail-in ballots were rejected in the March 1 Democratic and Republican primaries while 7,244 mail-in ballots were rejected in both runoffs. For the May 7 Constitutional Amendment election, the mail-in ballot rejection rate was just over 5% with 9,420 mail-in ballots rejected.
The Office of the Texas Secretary of State credits voter education on behalf of county election officials across the state with the decrease in rejections. The efforts include educating about the new ID requirement, updating the design of the carrier envelope to place a red box around the ID field and educational pamphlets about mail-in voting.
"We are confident that these steps, in combination with more voter education and positive engagement from local election officials, helped significantly reduce mail ballot rejection rates in both the May 7 and May 24 elections," the Texas Secretary of State's Office said in an email.
The rejection of mail-in ballots in the 2022 elections has come into focus as a result of the passage of Texas Senate Bill 1 in 2021, the Republican voting law implementing new changes and tighter restrictions on voting.
SB 1 was passed in the second legislative session following protests by Texas Democrats as Republicans argued that more election security was needed following the 2020 presidential election.
In part, the bill added ID requirements for mail-in voting by requiring voters to provide their driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number when applying for the ballot. It also created felony charges for election officials who send unsolicited mail-in ballot applications.
The new mail-in ballot requirements resulted in the increase of ballots rejected in the March primary when 12% of Texans had their ballot rejected, according to The Texas Tribune.
In Central Texas specifically, the rejection numbers follow the state trend as they decrease between the primaries and the latest runoffs.
The data shows that in Travis County, 673 or 7.15% of mail-in ballots were rejected in the Democratic primary, while 260 or 11.95% of such ballots were rejected in the Republican primary. For the Democratic primary runoff on May 24, 193 or 2.4% of mail-in ballots were rejected and 90, or 3.99%, of the ballots were rejected in the Republican primary runoff.
Rejection of applications for mail-in ballots was also an issue under the new Republican voting law and resulted in about 27% of applications for mail-in ballots being rejected by the Travis County Clerk's Office ahead of the March primaries.
At that time, the clerk's office said it had not received enough information on how to cure applications for ballots with the Secretary of State's Office, which the SOS refuted.
Williamson County shows a similar trend between the March and May elections. In the March 1 Democratic primary, 269 or 10.86% of mail-in ballots were rejected and 264 or 14.3% of ballots in the Republican primary were tossed.
Then in the runoffs, 42 ballots making up 1.96% of those submitted were rejected in the May Democratic primary runoff and 63 ballots, making up 3.77% of those cast, were rejected.
The Secretary of State's Office said it would expand its voter education efforts for the fall with its "VoteReady" campaign to help familiarize voters with ID requirements.
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