Federal judge shoots down Texas proclamation allowing one ballot drop-off location per county

Source: the hill




By Tal Axelrod - 10/09/20 11:19 PM EDT



A federal judge shot down a Texas proclamation limiting each county in the state to just one ballot drop-off location in this year’s elections, handing Democrats a key win in a competitive state.

Judge Robert Pitman, an Obama appointee serving on the District Court for the Western District of Texas, rebutted the state government’s arguments that the rule would limit voter confusion and prevent fraud, saying the rule itself was actually sparking confusion and restricting voting access.

Pitman instead ruled in his 46-page decision that the rule would in fact negatively impact voters by “creating voter confusion … causing absentee voters to travel further distances … causing absentee voters to wait in longer lines … [and] causing absentee voters to risk exposure to the coronavirus when they hand deliver their absentee ballots on Election Day.”

He added that there had been “no evidence of confusion” with the prior rule, which had allowed multiple drop-off sites in each of Texas’s 254 counties.

Pitman also rebuked the state’s arguments that drop-off sites could attract fraud, noting that the state had permitted multiple centers in the past.

“The State’s own approval of counties using satellite ballot return centers on Election Day belies their assertion that those same ballot return centers present ballot security concerns,” he wrote.

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Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/520460-federal-judge-shoots-down-texas-proclamation-allowing-one-ballot-drop