Federal Appeals Court Affirms Texas Limits on Mail Voting and Assistance

A federal appeals court on Aug. 12 overturned a lower court ruling and restored nine provisions of Texas’s 2021 election law, largely because the challengers lacked standing under two federal laws.

Standing means a party has to have a real stake in the case. A party has to show that a law actually harms it or is likely to harm it in a specific way, that the harm comes from the law itself, and that a victory in court would fix it.

The Texas law, known as S.B. 1 or the Election Protection and Integrity Act, was passed after the 2020 elections with the aim of enhancing election security, especially for mail-in voting and ballot harvesting. Ballot harvesting is the practice of gathering completed absentee ballots from voters and delivering them to election offices or polling places.

Some Texas lawmakers and the appeals court say that both mail-in balloting and ballot harvesting open the door to fraud, though some states and research suggest widespread fraud is rare.

Several groups challenged the state law’s compensation and ballot-harvesting restrictions, voter assistance rules, and mail-ballot ID and number-matching rules. The law required voters to provide a driver’s license ID number or the final four digits of a Social Security number that matches state records on applications and ballots.

The law also mandated that people rendering aid to voters must take an oath affirming that there was no coercion or intimidation involved, divulging their relationship to the voter, and reporting any compensation received from a candidate, campaign, or political action committee.

The groups argued that these rules discriminated against voters with disabilities and created barriers to voting, running afoul of Title II of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the federal Rehabilitation Act.

They also argued that the rules erected barriers that fell more heavily on people with disabilities and that the state failed to make reasonable accommodations so disabled voters could still participate equally.

A federal district court then issued a permanent injunction blocking the nine provisions.

In the case, known as La Union del Pueblo Entero v. Abbott, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, unanimously reversed and vacated the injunction on Aug. 12.

U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham wrote in the panel’s opinion that “it has long been established that mail-in ballots are prone to fraud.”

“That is why voting by mail jeopardizes election integrity and democracy itself,” he said.

The state law imposed security measures “most importantly” on mail-in ballots and ballot harvesting, but it became bogged down in litigation, Oldham said.

“As so often happens in modern America, a federal district judge then countermanded the Legislature with sweeping facial injunctions. We have been staying, vacating, and reversing those injunctions ever since,” he said.

Oldham likened the appeals process in this case to playing “an exhausting game of Whac-A-Mole to correct the district court’s mishandling of the case.”

“Today, we do it again,” the judge said in the opinion, reversing the district court’s ruling that the nine provisions were barred by the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act.

Oldham said ID-related rejection rates had fallen significantly and rejected the challengers’ claim—and the district court’s finding—that S.B. 1 exposed them to ongoing injury.

The district court had accepted testimony from election officials that elderly voters, disabled voters, and newly eligible mail voters were more likely to be confused by the new requirements and have their ballots rejected. But “the evidence since S.B. 1’s enactment says otherwise,” he said.

Most of the plaintiffs’ claims must be rejected for lack of standing, and the one claim that passed the standing bar still failed on the merits. Oldham added that none of the claims justify “interference with the State Legislature’s efforts to prevent voter fraud and to protect election integrity.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton hailed the new ruling as “a major win upholding election integrity and preventing voter fraud.”

“My office will continue to defend Texas’s critical laws safeguarding our elections,” he said in a post on X.

The Epoch Times sought comment from the American Civil Liberties Union, which was part of the plaintiffs’ legal team, but received no reply by publication time.