May 11, 2020

By Patrick Rodenbush
rodenbush@redistrictingfoundation.org

National Redistricting Foundation Supports New Lawsuit in Texas to Expand Access to Vote By Mail
Lawsuit Challenges State’s Absentee Voting Restrictions

Washington, D.C. — Today, a group of voters and organizations supported by the National Redistricting Foundation is filing a new lawsuit in Texas challenging the state’s absentee voting restrictions that will unjustifiably risk the voting rights of Texans. Plaintiffs in the suit include five individual voter-plaintiffs, along with organizations: Voto Latino, the Texas State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans. 

The suit challenges four restrictions on ballots submitted by mail: (1) the requirement that voters pay for postage to return ballots by mail (“Postage Tax”); (2) the requirement that returned ballots be postmarked by 7:00 p.m. on election day and received by 5:00 p.m. the following day (“Ballot Receipt Deadline); (3) the requirement that voters submit handwriting samples that “match” (“Signature Match Requirement”); and (4) the criminalization of third party assistance in returning marked ballots (“Voter Assistance Ban”). The case was filed in federal court, in the Western District of Texas, San Antonio division.

“Given the life and death consequences of the pandemic with which the nation is still grappling, Texas’ current absentee voting restrictions must be eliminated because they will severely burden those who wish to exercise their fundamental right to vote,” said Eric H. Holder, Jr., the 82nd Attorney General of the United States. “These restrictions force voters into an untenable choice: personal safety or community participation. Under no circumstances should Texas be allowed to force citizens to choose between casting a ballot and staying healthy. The state must act — and act now — in order to ensure that voters are able to cast a ballot from the safety of their own homes — and to have those ballots counted.”

“In Texas this year, the situation that we find ourselves in is totally inadequate and dangerous to our health if we go strictly by the laws that are now in place,” said Linda Jann Lewis, a plaintiff in the case. “In states like Wisconsin, we’ve seen people risking their lives to physically go to a polling place. We are months away from November — now is the time for our state government to pay attention to the pandemic and the lives that are at risk.”

In order to ensure that Texas voters will not be unconstitutionally denied their right to vote or have that right unduly burdened as a result of the unconstitutional application of the Vote By Mail Restrictions in the midst of this unprecedented crisis, Plaintiffs seek a preliminary injunction from this Court enjoining: 

• the Postage Tax, to ensure that lawful, eligible voters are not disenfranchised as a result of their inability to procure postage to return their mail-in ballots; 

• the Ballot Receipt Deadline, to ensure that lawful, eligible voters are not disenfranchised provided that their ballots are put in the mail on or before election day and received before the canvass of the election; 

• the Signature Match Requirement, to ensure that lawful, eligible voters are not disenfranchised as a result of inaccurate signature “matching” by persons unqualified to accurately evaluate the authenticity of signatures and with no opportunity to cure a misflagged mismatch to save their ballot from being rejected; and 

• the Voter Assistance Ban, to ensure that voters in need of assistance in delivering their marked vote-by-mail ballots receive that assistance. 

The National Redistricting Foundation is the 501(c)(3) affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, and was formed in 2017 to engage in work that protects voting rights and challenges gerrymandered congressional and state legislative districts. The National Redistricting Foundation has funded and executed lawsuits that include, but are not limited to, overturning gerrymandered congressional and state legislative maps in North Carolina, successfully challenging the Trump Administration’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the Census, and protecting Wisconsin voters from former Governor Scott Walker’s refusal to call special elections and attacks on early voting.  

You can download a filed copy of the complaint here.

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