Texas judge allows Harris County to send all voters applications for mail-in ballots

Harris County has faced intense criticism from Texas Republicans since announcing its plan to send applications for mail-in ballots to all of the county’s 2.4 million registered voters. Credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas Tribune

A state district judge on Friday ruled that Harris County can move forward with its plan to send every registered voter an application to request a mail-in ballot for the November general election.

Two days after a video conference hearing, Judge R.K. Sandill rejected the Texas attorney general’s request for a temporary injunction blocking the plan. The judge's order was not immediately available, but in ruling against the state Sandill indicated the attorney general’s office failed to prove the state would be irreparably harmed if the county distributed the applications.

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In a news conference Thursday, Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins said it is his priority to make sure residents of Harris County can cast their vote safely and efficiently.

“We encourage every registered voter to apply to vote by mail if you are eligible,” Hollins said. “It’s safer and more convenient for you. You can vote from the safety and comfort of your dinner table or your sofa and you can take the time you need to make your choices.”

The judge’s order, which is certain to be appealed by the state, means Harris County can proactively send out applications — which voters would otherwise have to request or find online — to all 2.4 registered voters on the county’s voter roll. The county previously agreed to wait for five days after Sandill’s ruling to begin mailing out the applications.

The faceoff between Texas’ Republican leadership and the state’s largest county, where elections are currently run by a Democratic county clerk, is the latest clash over voting during the coronavirus pandemic. Up to now, the state has resisted making many changes to its voting processes and has largely fended off efforts to force an adjustment to its rules through the courts.

Harris County has faced intense criticism from Texas Republicans since announcing it would go well beyond its initiative from the July primary runoffs when it sent applications to every registered voter in the county who is 65 and older — an initiative several other counties are now taking on ahead of the November general election. Under Texas law, those voters automatically qualify for a ballot they can fill out at home and mail-in or drop off at their county elections office.

The mailing plan provoked a rare threat of litigation from the Texas secretary of state over concerns it could cause confusion among voters who receive the applications but are not eligible, and clog up the county’s vote-by-mail infrastructure to the detriment of voters who are eligible for absentee ballots. But the lawsuit filed by the Texas attorney general in Harris County actually centered on an argument that county clerks are only “expressly empowered” by the Texas Election Code to send out applications to voters who request them. By that standard, Hollins is trying to act beyond his authority, the state argues.

During a virtual hearing Wednesday, Hollins presented the proposed mailer and detailed to the judge how it would be accompanied with guidance on who is eligible to vote by mail. In fact, Hollins said, prospective voters would first see those instructions on the top flap of the packet before getting to the application.

And attorneys for the county also argued that there was no state law that prohibits a local election administrator from proactively sending out applications.

“The Legislature knows how to write a prohibition when they want to,” said Susan Hays, who represented Harris County during the hearing. “There’s not a prohibition on doing something extra. They’re wrong about the code for that reason.”

But most of the discussion throughout the hours-long hearing was guided by Sandill’s questioning on whether the state was providing sufficient evidence that it would be imminently harmed or face irreversible damage by the mailing of the applications.

State attorneys and Keith Ingram, director of elections for the Texas secretary of state, raised concerns that Harris County was “walking” voters into committing a felony by sending out applications to voters who may ultimately not be eligible.

“We know from experience that not that many people fall into the other vote by mail categories,” Ingram said.

Texas has fought to keep in place its strict eligibility rules for mail-in ballots, which limit such ballots to voters who are 65 and older, voters who will be out of the county during the election period, voters confined in jail but otherwise eligible, or voters who cite a physical condition or illness that makes a trip to the polls a risky endeavor.

While lack of immunity to the new coronavirus alone doesn’t qualify a voter for a mail-in ballot based on disability, a voter can consider it along with their medical history to decide if they meet the requirement.

“If you send out unsolicited applications for ballots by mail as a government official to persons who are not eligible to vote by mail, some portion of them are going to be misled into thinking they do qualify because the government sent me an application and they will put false information on that application,” Ingram testified.

Sandill previewed he was not convinced by the state during the hearing when he pointed out to state lawyer Charles Eldred that the state was not suing on behalf of Texas voters who Ingram worried could be misled. Pressed by Sandill later in the hearing, Eldred indicated the state would be harmed by the mailing of unsolicited applications that could not be recalled under the direction of a clerk the state argues does not have the authority to mail them.

(Under an agreement between the state and the county, applications to voters under 65 have not yet been mailed.)

“You’re saying the act [of sending out applications] in and of itself is the harm,” Sandill told Eldred. But Ingram’s testimony indicated otherwise, he said. “What was conveyed to me is the act is not the harm. It was the misleading of the voter that was the harm…I’m trying to figure out which train to take.”

According to Hollins, protecting the right to vote is not easy, and doing so in today’s climate in Texas' largest county is unprecedented. Hollins said no one should have to choose between voting or health, and in Harris County, no one will have to.

“The 2020 election is too important, and the stakes are simply too high,” Hollins said. “We know it. Stakeholders across Harris County know it, and we are working together to accommodate the record turnout that we expect in Harris County.”

Disclosure: The Texas secretary of state has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.