Federal court upholds Texas governor's limit on mail-in drop off sites

Campaigners say decision will suppress voting

A drive-through mail ballot drop off site at the NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas (Getty Images)

A federal court has reinstated an order by Texas governor Greg Abbott that limits absentee ballot drop-off sites in the state to one per county, a move Democrats and voting rights activists say will suppress voting among minority communities.

Judges on the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals late on Monday ruled in favour of governor Abbott, saying that his concerns about mail-ballot security trumped those of campaigners, who claim the changes mean hundreds of thousands of Texans will not be able to vote safely due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Each of the three judges on the panel was appointed by president Donald Trump, who throughout the pandemic has claimed - without evidence - that mail-in ballots could fall foul to voter fraud, as millions of Americans vote by post.

The decision means more than a dozen satellite locations in at least two counties will remain shut down: Harris, which includes Houston and has more than 4 million residents, had set up 12 locations, while Travis, which includes Austin, had four.

Voting by mail, and early voting in general, is surging in this election, as voters seek to avoid waiting in lines at polling places for fear of contracting Covid-19, which has claimed some 215,000 US lives - just over 17,000 of those fatalities have been recorded in Texas.

Nationally, more than 10 million votes have already been cast, a record-shattering pace, according to data compiled by the US Elections Project.

Republicans and Democrats have been engaged in a multistate legal battle over the rules governing mail-in ballots, including drop boxes. Texas is one of the few states that does not allow all residents to vote by mail. Only voters who are over 65, away from home on election day, ill, disabled or in jail are permitted to cast absentee ballots.

In light of the pandemic, governor Abbott signed an order this summer allowing voters to submit absentee ballots ahead of the 3 November poll - a first for the state. But he subsequently issued a second proclamation limiting counties to a single drop-off site, citing the potential for fraud.

The appeals court said the two orders, taken together, represent an expansion, not a restriction, of the right to vote, since Texas typically allows voters to bring mail ballots in person only on election day. "How this expansion of voting opportunities burdens anyone's right to vote is a mystery," the unanimous three-judge panel wrote in Monday's ruling.

Governor Abbot welcomed the judges' decision, claiming that his efforts to expand access to voting had been vindicated. "The Federal Court of Appeals upholds my proclamation about mail-in ballots saying that it actually expanded access to voting by allowing drop-offs before election day," he wrote on Twitter.

"Critics were clearly clueless about the legality of my action & simply voiced prejudicial political opinions."

Luis Roberto Vera Jr., national general counsel of the League of United Latin American Citizens, which is leading the drop-box challenge, said on Monday night the organisation is discussing whether to appeal the ruling, which came just hours before in-person early voting started in Texas.

Responding to the ruling, Texas Democratic party chair Gilberto Hinojosa, said:  “We can overcome. While Republicans will do whatever it takes to hold onto power, even if it means suppressing the votes of the rising Texas electorate, Texas Democrats are fighting for every eligible voter to have their voices heard.”

Texas, which has some of the strictest voting laws in the US, has for years been a solidly red state. But polling shows Democrats are just nine seats away from seizing control from the GOP for the first time in two decades, with several longtime Republican stronghold districts in the Houston area in play after close calls in 2018.

Democrats say their improving prospects in the former Republican stronghold are due in part to the state’s changing demographics. According to the Texas demographer’s office, nearly 54 per cent of the state’s population growth from 2010 to 2018 came within the Latino community.

National polling shows a tight race in Texas,  with the president having just a 2 per cent lead over his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden.

Additional reporting by Reuters