Texas Governor’s Limit on Ballot Drop Boxes Blocked by Judge

(Bloomberg) -- Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s plan to limit each county to a single drop-box for mail-in ballots -- regardless of the size or population -- was blocked again, this time by a state court judge.

An injunction against the limitation was issued Thursday in Austin by Judge Tim Sulak, who ruled that restricting the number of boxes would put voters at risk during the coronavirus pandemic.

The judge said limiting the number of drop boxes “would likely needlessly and unreasonably increase risks of exposure to Covid-19 infections, and needlessly and unreasonably substantially burden potential voters’ constitutionally protected rights to vote, as a consequence of increased travel and delays, among other things.”

Though a Republican bulwark in recent decades, Texas is a toss-up this year, and its populous urban areas lean Democratic. Harris County, which includes Houston, is the third-largest county in the nation by population. President Donald Trump is leading Joe Biden by 4.4 percentage points in the state, according the latest RealClear Politics average of polls.

Federal Case

Earlier, a federal court judge had also blocked the governor’s plan. But the limitation was reinstated after a federal appeals court in New Orleans on Monday sided with Abbott’s Oct. 1 order, which shuttered multiple drop boxes where thousands of ballots in some of Texas’s largest counties were already collected.

“Having absentee ballot return sites where voters need them is crucial to holding a fair election, particularly during the pandemic,” Cheryl Drazin, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League’s Central Division, said in a statement.

Abbott has argued the limitation was needed to prevent voter fraud, echoing a claim made by many Republican officials, including Trump, that has failed to gain traction in lawsuits across the country.

The fate of the drop-box limit is far from certain. If an appeal were to reach the Texas Supreme Court, it would face a full slate of Republican justices.

The plaintiffs in the state suit, including a unit of the the Anti-Defamation League argued Abbott lacks authority under Texas law to limit ballot return locations and that doings so violates their equal protection rights under the Texas constitution.

Groups including the Texas League of United Latin American Citizens and the Texas Legislative Black Caucus sued in federal court, alleging the Republican governor’s plan amounted to illegal voter suppression in counties with larger populations.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.