The state’s new mail voting requirements caused nearly 25,000 ballots to be rejected in the March primaries.

Houston Chronicle

WASHINGTON — Voters of color were 50 percent more likely than white voters to have mail ballots rejected under a new Texas law that restricted voting by mail, according to a new study detailing “massive disenfranchisement” under the law.

The law — passed by Texas Republicans in 2021 in the name of election integrity — requires absentee voters to include either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number on the ballot. The number has to match what the voter put on their registration form, but advocates say many voters forget which number is on file or overlook it on their ballots.

The requirement caused nearly 25,000 ballots and 12,000 applications for them to be rejected in the March primaries. The rejection rate was 12.4 percent statewide, with a slightly more pronounced rate in Democratic primaries, at 12.9 percent compared with 11.8 percent of Republican ballots, according to figures from the Texas Secretary of State.

An analysis of those rejections by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice found Latino, Asian and Black voters were significantly more likely to have both applications and ballots rejected under the new requirement.