{"id":406015,"date":"2026-08-14T01:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T01:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/406015\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T01:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T01:16:09","slug":"texas-mail-ballot-id-requirements-restored-by-appeals-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/406015\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas\u2019 mail ballot ID requirements restored by appeals court"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday restored several pieces<\/a> of a 2021 Texas election law that overhauled mail-in and assisted voting, overturning a lower court\u2019s block on<\/a> those provisions.<\/p>\n

Five years ago, Texas passed Senate Bill 1<\/a>, a wide-reaching election law that changed the way local officials administer elections and how some Texans vote, particularly aimed at<\/a> initiatives Harris County implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. The law was denounced by voter advocacy groups, civil rights organizations and Democratic lawmakers, who broke quorum<\/a> in an attempt to stifle the bill.<\/p>\n

After several lawsuits over accessibility concerns created by the new law were consolidated into a single suit, a district judge in March 2025 struck down nine of its provisions. Those blocked provisions included requiring Texans to provide an identification number or social security number on mail in ballot applications and have them match the state\u2019s records. The judge also blocked provisions that create processes for curing defective ballots and require voters and those who assist them in filling out their ballot to sign an oath swearing they did not coerce the voter and disclose how they\u2019re related.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs who sued argued the provisions were overly cumbersome and restrictive for voters with disabilities, and the district judge agreed, ruling they violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Texas allows voters who are over the age of 65 and those with certain disabilities, among others, to vote by mail.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s 11-page ruling from the Fifth Circuit reverses the district judge\u2019s ruling in its entirety, finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing on most of their complaints. The written opinion strongly rebuked the lower courts\u2019 decisions in the suit, noting that appellate judges have \u201creversed the district court on everything\u201d through the suit\u2019s five years of litigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bulk of the plaintiffs\u2019 claims fail for lack of standing. One fails on the merits. But none justifies interference with the State Legislature\u2019s efforts to prevent voter fraud and to protect election integrity,\u201d Judge Andrew Oldham wrote in the opinion.<\/p>\n

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is a defendant in the suit, described the ruling as a \u201cmajor victory\u201d in a social media post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ruling also asserts that mail-in ballots have \u201clong been established\u201d as prone to fraud, and notes that the number of mail-in application or mail-in ballot rejections caused by identification numbers errors dropped from 11% to 2.7% after the law\u2019s implementation. A 2022 study<\/a> found that 1 in 7 voters in the 2022 primary had their applications or ballots rejected in the wake of SB 1.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune<\/a> and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday restored several pieces of a 2021 Texas election law…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1658,2160,557,132,134,133,1063,223,287,27,2053],"class_list":["post-406015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-associated-press","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-texas","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}