Texas
A Quantitative Dive into Texas's 2020 Voting Trends
Last updated: September 14, 2020
Texas 2020 Elections: Preparations and Consideration
Last updated: July 10, 2020
Latest Updates:
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10/30/20 - Mask Order Overruled: The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that wearing masks will not be required of voters and poll workers during the November 3 General Election, reversing a lower court decision.
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10/21/20 - Signature Matching Change: The 5th Circuit reversed the lower court's decision to require election officials to notify voters if there was a signature mismatch on their ballot. Now, officials can simply reject the ballot if there is a problem with the signature.
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10/16/20 - Ballot Drop Box: Texas judge issued a preliminary injunction to prevent Governor Abbott from limiting each county to only one ballot drop box.
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10/2/20 - Drop Boxes: Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, is now limiting the number of drop boxes to one per county.
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9/27/20 - Straight Ticket Voting: A federal judge reversed a ban on straight ticket voting in Texas for the 2020 General Election, on the premise that an absence of straight ticket voting could contribute to longer poll lines, cause confusion for voters, and increase the risk of COVID-19 infection.
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9/14/20 - Signature Matching Change: A U.S. District Court Judge has ordered that Texas election officials cannot reject a mail-in ballot because of a signature mismatch issue without first giving the voter an opportunity to correct the mismatch.
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9/1/20 - Voter Registration : A U.S. district judge has ordered the Texas Secretary of State to make voter registration available online through the state's DMV website before September 23. The judge found that Texas' requirement of a physical signature is in violation of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.
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8/15/20 - Polling Place Staffing Problems: Texas saw some issues staffing its polling places during the July 14 primary runoff—10% of election judges withdrew from their duties in Dallas County due to a Coronavirus flare-up, and three polling places were shut down in Bexar County due to such shortages. Another issue for poll workers, 87% of whom are over 60, was the exemption in Governor Greg Abbot’s mask mandate for voters and election judges—some workers reported abandoning their posts for their own safety after seeing that their colleagues were not wearing masks.
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8/15/20 - COVID Precautions: Texas’s July 14 primary runoff was a “mostly smooth trial run for November.” Voters reported ample sanitation equipment and well-managed social distancing protocol, and the unprecedentedly long lines seen during the March 3 primary were avoided.
State Resources:
Other Research:
Absentee Voting Is Popular During COVID-19 But Does Not Change Turnout or Partisan Rates of Voting. This paper analyzes the effects of absentee voting on turnout, vote mode, and partisan rates of turnout during the pandemic, taking advantage of the July 14th TX runoff primary where only voters over the age of 65 were able to cast no-excuse absentee ballots. It finds that while take-up of absentee voting was extremely high for those eligible during COVID, and was heavily one-sided (nearly all take-up was among Democrats), there was no effect on overall turnout and no pro-Democratic shift in the partisan composition of turnout.