Texas Alliance for Retired Americans Sues Over Ballot Changes

AUSTIN, TX — The Texas Alliance for Retired Americans has filed a lawsuit challenging the governor's proclamation limiting the number of locations where voters can hand-deliver mail-in ballots to one per county, the group announced on Saturday.

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Texas, officials said in an advisory. The litigation comes two days after Abbott on Thursday issued an order allowing Texas counties no more than one drop-off location for voters casting absentee ballots.

The plaintiffs said the proclamation by Gov. Greg Abbott "...effectively closes additional ballot return locations throughout the state and forces thousands of older voters to choose between protecting their health or casting a ballot they know will be counted."

As a result, the group is asking the district court to:

• Declare the Ballot Return Restriction Proclamation unconstitutional, and that county election administrators may establish multiple locations where voters may return their marked mail-in ballots to secured ballot drop-off locations; and
• prohibit the state of Texas from taking any action to inhibit election administrators from offering drop-off locations.

“This is blatant voter suppression and changing the rules after voting has started," Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said in a prepared statement. "Gov. Abbott’s last-minute proclamation does nothing to enhance the security of the election. It only eliminates a method of voting that allows voters to cast a ballot they know will be counted without putting their health at risk. It is a slap in the face to older Texans, who have suffered so much during this pandemic.”

Related story: Voters, Voting Rights Groups Sue Gov. Greg Abbott Over Order To Close Ballot Drop-Off Locations

Added Anthony Padilla, president of the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans: “The court must protect our right to vote. So many of our members are counting on returning their ballots in person."

The complaint notes that for many voters who will vote by mail, the nearest drop-off location will now be dozens or even hundreds of miles away, forcing those voters to travel long distances to deliver their ballots to their county’s election administration or to put their ballots in the care of the Postal Service which has informed the state that Texas election mail will be delayed.

Read a copy of the complaint here

This year, the Alliance for Retired Americans, working with its state chapters, has filed lawsuits to protect vote by mail and absentee voters in Florida, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in addition to Texas, officials noted. The Texas Alliance for Retired Americans is a state affiliate of the national Alliance for Retired Americans, and has more than 146,000 members statewide.

The newly filed litigation follows similar action by various voting rights advocates and civic groups, including the Texas and National Leagues of United Latin American Citizens and the League of Women Voters of Texas and voters who asked a federal judge in Austin to overturn the governor's order, which forced Travis and Harris counties — two of the state's most important Democratic strongholds — to shutter a number of drop-off sites they had already opened this week, as the Texas Tribune reported.