From voter access advocate Mark Elias:  Tufts University political science professor Eitan Hersh ran a test using data from Texas and running it through the verification steps required for compliance with the state’s new SB1 voter suppression law, finding that even when voters filled out all paperwork correctly and submitted them properly, the system would immediately reject nearly 25% of all mail ballot requests statewide.

Hersh took data required to match across two different state systems:  one from the voter registration database; the other from identification databases for personal IDs and driver’s licenses in the state’s Department of Public Safety.  Under SB1, information from the two databases must match up to verify the voter’s various identification numbers:  Social Security Number, driver’s license, or other available information.

Hersh found that even when voters filled out all the forms correctly, because of errors and inconsistencies across the various systems and databases, 2.6 million ballot forms would have been rejected.  For comparison, in the 2020 presidential election, 11 million ballots were cast in Texas, with 1.2 million mail ballot requests received around the state.

“Okay,” you think.  “It’s just the mail-in ballot requests.”  Well, no, because even for in-person voting in Texas, voters need to have ID which must match the voter registration information.  That makes it more complicated:  Names AND numbers must match.  If you have a middle initial on your voter registration but your full middle name (or no middle name) on your driver’s licence, your form could be rejected. While you’re politely arguing with the elderly lady working the polls about how it was all correct election day, the lines get longer, and more people get discouraged.

The system is designed to fail.  What this comes down to is Texans Republicans are rewarding their own incompetence:  so long as the data in the two systems don’t match, fewer people can vote.  And guess who benefits from lower voter turnout?