I have four things to say about this.
A Harris County man fears new voting laws may prevent him from voting by absentee ballot for the first time in his lifetime.
Kenneth Thompson, 95, has been checking his mail daily in hopes his mail-in ballot is among the pile.
Thompson has been voting since he was 21-years-old, and he even recalls paying a $0.25 poll tax in the 1950′s.
“I’ve been voting many, many years and I’ve never missed a vote,” Thompson said.
Thompson considers voting a duty. He served in the U.S. Army in WWII during the European Theater for the right to vote and other freedoms.
Decades later, the vet fears Texas’ new election law, SB1, could prevent him from voting for the first time in his life.
Per law, Thompson must either provide part of his social security number or his driver’s license number that matches his registration record with the county or state.
“He registered to vote in the 1940′s and they didn’t require that,” said Thompson’s daughter, Delinda Holland.
Since Holland can’t meet the new requirement, his mail-in ballot application was denied twice. The veteran said Harris County election officials never notified him and he had to call to find out both times.
“There’s gonna be a lot of people not gonna vote,” Thompson said. “If I hadn’t have called in about mine, people wouldn’t have known.”
Thompson’s daughter, Holland, who has only missed voting in one bond election herself, said she’s even tried contacting the county and state Secretary of State’s Office to add her dad’s license number to his registration file online. She said she discovered there’s not actually a way to have that done.
“We know it’s a new law, we’re happy to correct it,” Holland said. “He’s a law-abiding citizen. He doesn’t want to miss voting, and yet, there’s no mechanism to add that driver’s license to your record.”
Holland said she had to re-register her dad last week to ensure he makes the Jan. 31, 2022 voter registration deadline. Thompson said he hopes he’ll have a ballot in the mail soon, otherwise he plans to vote in person.
1. Yes, this is voter suppression. This guy has been voting for over 70 years, and now he’s being asked to provide a number to match a non-existent value in a database. Putting aside the question of how this ludicrous charade enhances “election integrity”, this is suppression because it’s an obstacle that was put in the way of a lot of people who have no easy way to overcome it. Look at what he’s had to go through to try to be able to vote as he’s been used to voting and is legally entitled to vote, and then multiply it by however many thousands of people in similar straits. The people who wrote and supported this law knew for certain this would happen – they were explicitly told it would happen – and they didn’t care. The fact that he will ultimately vote in person if he doesn’t get a mail ballot is irrelevant, as many people in the same position will not have that option.
2. Part of the issue here is that Mr. Thompson hasn’t been able to get the help he needs from Harris County or the Secretary of State. We know that county election officials have not been able to get accurate information about the new law from the SOS office in a timely fashion. The SOS office, likely due to a combination of the law being big and complex and there not being a lot of time to read and understand it as well as the fact that the person in charge is a partisan hack who has no commitment to voting rights, has been overwhelmed. The SOS certainly deserves its share of the blame, but again Republican legislators could and should have known this would happen. They could have very easily delayed implementation of the law until 2023 or 2024, to give everyone sufficient time to adjust to it. But they didn’t, because making it harder for people to vote was the point and they didn’t want to wait for that to happen.
3. It’s hard to imagine a more sympathetic victim than a 95-year-old World War II veteran. There was a time when the revelation of his plight would have gotten a reaction from the people who are responsible for it, with at the least some apologies and assurances that they didn’t mean for this to happen and that they would do what they could to make it right for him and people like him. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for a single Republican elected official to say any of these things now.
4. In the name of all that is sacred, don’t read the comments. You think the comments on newspaper articles are bad, hoo boy.
You told me not to read the comments so of course I did. What a bunch of ignorant assholes.
This Republican caused voter suppression is awful.
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