putting the ballot in the envelope. Small changes in new
voting rules for something as simple as an envelope
sealing it can keep legitimate votes from counting.
That's the takeaway from our investigation into what
happened with a surge of rejected ballots in texas. We
found a redesigned ballot envelope. Republicans in
texas said would prevent voter fraud actually blocked
legal votes including one from a royal ruth Princess
Love. I was shocked. She hadn't missed an election in
decades and she even volunteers at the polls. I mean
it's just as part of my breathing but voting as part of
my nature she's among Texans who failed to comply with
the new rule for voters To print their driver's license
number or last four digits of their social security
number on their ballot return envelope. Princess Love
told us she just never saw the new instructions. I
totally missed it. The rate of rejected mail and
ballots in Texas jumped from less than 1% in 2022, more
than 12% during the March primary. The state doesn'
track how often the new I.D. Rule on the envelope was
the problem. But data we analyze from Harris county
home to Houston gives us a good idea all of these are
ballots that were thrown out in Harris County because
of that driver's license number or Social Security
number issue Harris County rejected about 7000 ballots
because of the new I.D. Requirement. It may surpri
you to hear the envelope tripped up republicans at a
higher rate than democrats. This happened to you and
your republican interviews with denied voters reveal
the problems with the design of the new ballot envelope.
The I.D. Requirement was buried in a heap of fine print
and I had not read that and probably most of Houst
hadn't read that. It appears the key instructions we
printed in about seven point font. Unreadable even
though national election standards recommend nothing
smaller than 10 point font. Also the boxes for voters
to fill out I.D. Numbers had to be hidden for privacy
according to the Secretary of state's office which
designed the envelope. They were in an unusual place
beneath the envelopes flap. Do you even remember seeing
what was underneath the flat It just. No it was just
like muddled in there. I think design had a huge impact
here. Whitney Quisenberry helps election offices build
simple clear balance. She says the trouble in Texas is
a warning to 18 other states that also passed
restrictive voting rules after the 2020 election. Hasty
design changes even to just an envelope can
disenfranchise voters of all political stripes. This is
not just an envelope. This is the pony express of
Democracy Thank you. Ohio has a similar requirement for
mail and voters to include an I.D. Number yet that
state's rejection rates are normal. Low the difference.
Ohio's voter instructions have been the same for years.
They're big written in plain language important things
are highlighted. They've number the steps you must
complete all five sections so they've done things to
create a pathway through it. Ohio also has more space
to work with Quisenberry says Texas just didn't have
enough time to thoughtfully retool its ballot. The new
law took effect in December with an election March one.
So when we ask elections to move fast it's easy to make
mistakes and it's easy to make mistakes not because
someone is trying to make mistakes but because it's a
complicated human system. Poor design may have been
especially significant in texas where male and voting
is reserved for people with disabilities and seniors
lots of people have old age infirmities which inclu
your vision going Harris county elections adminis
Isabel Longoria says officials had no choice but to
cram the new instructions on a mailer with limited
space. You see all this text it is mandated by law we
included on here no matter how small the font is to
maintain uniformity of ballots across the state. Even
the smallest tweaks need approval and make this word
purple. You have to get approval from the Secretary of
state and took about a month. The Secretary of State's
office acknowledges the ballot envelope was difficult
to navigate. An updated envelope now includes red boxes
around the I.D. Requirement to draw voters attention
but Harris county says it's impractical to switch
envelopes now. So here you see we've got a whole box of
these. They have stacks of the old envelope. Election
offices had to buy supplies months ago to handle
another problem. A paper shortage. You have to actually
plan six months to eight months in advance to even get
these things. They plan to reevaluate design of the
mail ballot envelopes ahead of the november election.
This is birthday with Harris county elections, ballot
by mail election offices in texas. Call up voters who
sent an incomplete ballot if they have a phone number
on file giving them a chance to fix the problem so
their vote can be accepted. You did not place the I.D.
Or the last four of your social on the ballot carri
envelope. As now required by law. Longoria is concerned
rejection rates appear to be high again during May
voting especially among african american voters. Texas
is no longer a leader when it comes to voting
innovation. In fact, I think we're a warning sign to
the rest of the country. Longoria agreed to resign her
post effective july amid backlash over an issue
involving the unofficial tally of ballots. Neither
Princess love nor Gertner fixed their ballots from
March, both deciding to wait until the next election to
try again with voting by mail and we shouldn't give up.
We shouldn't give up on it. Texas driver's license.
Gardner carefully filled out that tricky ballot
envelope for the May election a little less. Sure her
vote would count. Patrick is with us tonight here in
the studio. Patrick, a lot of states do mail and voting
early mail in voting. Why not just copy paste those
systems put texas on it. You know, it's gonna work well
because the reality is texas tried to do something very
unusual. They tried to keep the same envelope. People
have probably seen this at their home that they've
always had before. But they tried to add a bunch of
information and in order to add that information for
the Social Security number and driver's license, they
had to put it underneath a flap so that it could be
hidden because if you drop this in the mail, you don't
want people to see it. So people were missing this
because it's under the flap and it's in really fine
print. So I don't know how good your eyes are, but you
have to be able to see that and think to yourself, oh,
something might appear under the flap. So when they
designed this, they did it trying to use the same old
envelope. Whereas other states that do this, they say
you can't put all this on one envelope, you need
another piece of paper. But election offices, they have
to follow what the Secretary of State models and the
Secretary of State said, put it all here. What a mess.
When I heard about the story, I thought, you know,
someone just missed something N hidden under a flap. A
lot of people would miss that. Thank you