AP Exclusive: Hundreds of Texans may have voted improperly

[DonViejo]

Source: Associated Press



SATURDAY, FEB 18, 2017 08:45 AM EST

DAVID SALEH RAUF, ASSOCIATED PRESS

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas election officials acknowledge that hundreds of people were allowed to bypass the state’s toughest-in-the-nation voter ID law and improperly cast ballots in the presidential election by signing a sworn statement instead of showing a photo ID.

The chief election officers in two of Texas’ largest counties are considering whether to refer cases to prosecutors for possible charges. Officials in many other areas say they’ll let the mistakes go. They say there was widespread confusion among poll workers and voters.

The law requires voters to show one of seven approved forms of identification. It was softened in August to allow people without a driver’s license or other photo ID to sign an affidavit declaring that they have an impediment to obtaining required identification.

###

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2017/02/18/ap-exclusive-hundreds-of-texans-may-have-voted-improperly/

[librechik]

1. people?

I'm assuming, white people were allowed, right?

I heard "Texas"

[crazylikafox]

2. Why was this improper if allowed by law?

"The law requires voters to show one of seven approved forms of identification. It was softened in August to allow people without a driver’s license or other photo ID to sign an affidavit declaring that they have an impediment to obtaining required identification."

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. Exactly what I was wondering?

[HoneyBadger]

6. They had to follow up within 6 days for the vote to count

What is a reasonable impediment?

Reasonable impediments identified on the Reasonable Impediment Declaration include lack of transportation, disability or illness, lack of birth certificate or other documents needed to obtain acceptable photo ID, work schedule, family responsibilities, lost or stolen photo ID, or photo ID applied for but not received. You may also describe another reasonable impediment you have on the Reasonable Impediment Declaration form.

5. What if a voter does not have any form of ID with them at the polling place and they do not have a disability exemption?

If a voter does not possess an acceptable form of photo ID, and does not have or does not bring a supporting form of ID to present in connection with a Reasonable Impediment Declaration, or if the voter does not have a reasonable impediment to obtaining an acceptable form of photo ID, or if the voter has, but did not bring with them, an acceptable form of photo ID, the voter may cast a provisional ballot at the polls. However, in order to have the provisional ballot counted the voter will be required to visit the county voter registrar’s office within six calendar days of the date of the election to either present an acceptable form of photo ID OR submit one of the temporary affidavits addressed above (religious objection or natural disaster) in the presence of the county voter registrar.

Alternatively, a voter who possesses an acceptable form of photo ID but does not have it at the polling place, or a voter who does not possess an acceptable form of photo ID, and is reasonably able to obtain one, may choose to leave the polling place and return before the close of the polls on election day with an acceptable form of photo ID to vote a regular ballot at that time. In addition, a voter who does not possess, would otherwise not be able to reasonably obtain an acceptable form of photo ID, but did not bring a supporting form of ID to the polling place, may choose to leave the polling place and return before the close of the polls on election day with said supporting form of ID to fill out the Reasonable Impediment Declaration and, if they otherwise qualify, vote a regular ballot at that time.

[Crash2Parties]

21. A: Because 45 is looking for "voter fraud" and Texas looooves him

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Texas Cartoon from 2012

[riversedge]

33. I so tire of Repugs LYING

[yallerdawg]

4. If you ask me, millions of Texans voted improperly!

But, no one's asking.

[KPN]

25. Lol! Good one!

[wishstar]

7. As long as they were citizens, not illegal

Sounds like this story is being hyped up by Repub officials to prop up their narrative of voter fraud where there is none, in fact these very restrictive voter ID laws actual serve to disenfranchise voters, not protect voter integrity

[Plucketeer]

8. Voting should be allowed only to those

who can pass the standard tests we give to grant citizenship to immigrants. That test should ALSO BE administered to the candidates. We wouldn't be where we are now if the mean tangerine had been forced to pass the test.

[Ilsa]

23. As much as I the idea of having an informed

Electorate, what kind of tests will gop secretaries of state devise? I would expect a lot of subjective crap, like "who was the better president, Washington or Lincoln?" in an attempt to disqualify anyone with liberal political values.

I like the idea of testing candidates.

[HoneyBadger]

30. Used to be all sorts of racist tests for voting

[Plucketeer]

31. Well aware of that

What's a citizenship test look like? If you can pass it, you're qualified to make informed decisions. Judging by the dolt in the White House, things would be mighty different if folks had even a rudimentary understanding of how our government is supposed to work. BTW, I'm married to a retired civics teacher. I helped her grade papers. That experience helps me understand how we have an orange primate tending the "football".

[Fla Dem]

9. There's a difference between "improperly" and "illegally" that's if anything was done wrong at all.

They may not have been illegal votes, they just did not comply with the original requirements of their voter id laws. But then it says the law was softened.

"The law requires voters to show one of seven approved forms of identification. It was softened in August to allow people without a driver’s license or other photo ID to sign an affidavit declaring that they have an impediment to obtaining required identification."

This is very ambiguous. Who soften what? The Law? The requirements? It just says "it" was softened in August. If the appropriate officials "softened the law" why it it now an issue? Very poor reporting by the AP and unfortunately it will give Trump and his sycophants a good reason to say "I told you so, rigged election."

[Honeycombe8]

15. The OP article says the "impediments" are limited.

Seems like the article says that you can fill out the affidavit & claim an impediment to obtaining a photo ID, but the only two impediments that allow that are religious objection and natural disaster. I've never heard of a religious objection to obtaining a photo ID.

So it seems like they were allowed to vote, but didn't go to clerk later to do the affidavit (who could take off work like that? And the clerk is all the way downtown, probably. A hurdle.). Or when they did, they discovered the allowed impediments didn't apply to them.

That's not the fault of the voters. That's the fault of the election officials and the legislators for designing an exception requiring a follow-up that would be a hardship for some, and a burden on election officials to locate and verify affidavits signed and if they are valid, and then purge votes for which there are no affidavits. Too complicated.

Sounds like the legislature came up with an "exception" that applies to almost no one, to satisfy maybe a court judgment or complaints about the strict voter ID law recently enacted.

But really...voters just need to get photo IDs, whether it's a driver's license or state ID, if they want to make sure their vote counts. That's how things are going. You have to have a certified copy of your birth certificate to get a photo ID there, I think.

Trump won Texas handily, so some of these voters were Trump voters, although most people probably assume these without photo IDs are hispanic (Trumpers would think they are illegal immigrants).

[nikibatts]

10. Where was this? Didn't 45 win Texas? Case rested!

[Turbineguy]

11. Why don't they stop all this foolishness and pretense?

You can only vote if you are white, republican and have a below average IQ.

[joshdawg]

20. That's Texas for ya.

And I live here, but voted for HRC. I'd do it again in a heartbeat if it was possible.

[Percy Cholmondeley]

12. So did they break the law, actually?

This story sounds a bit Comey-ish

[wildeyed]

18. No.

They signed an affidavit that said they had 'reasonable' impediment to getting an ID. If you had to work, couldn't get a ride to DMV, etc, it was considered a 'reasonable' impediment to getting an ID. The courts required that they soften the ID requirement, otherwise they would throw it out as a poll tax.

In my city, the DMVs are all in first ring suburban areas with poor public transportation access. Which makes sense if the only people who use it drive CARS. Not so much when you make bunch of poor and elderly who don't drive get pointless IDs. Plus they way understaffed them in the run up to the election, which bit them in the butt because voters who were using DMV for legit driving purposes were waiting 4+ hours for service. They ended up having to bring in workers from out of the county and pay them extra to deal with the backlash.

In NC they threw it voter ID out completely anyway because it was found to be racially discriminatory and unconstitutional.

Horrible headline for an poorly written 'article'. A high school newspaper could have done better.

[PSPS]

13. Misleading headline. They were entirely proper votes.

[They_Live]

14. The law was "softened" by court order

which doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere.

[wildeyed]

16. Why I don't read Salon anymore.

Clickbait site now. Betcha this article is now being posted all over the interwebs bt RW bot accounts as "proof" of voter fraud

[MedusaX]

17. Variety of "local" interpretations

The voter ID law was softened by a court ruling...

The ruling allowed additional forms of "ID" to be used in conjunction with the signing of the designated affidavit.

The original 7 ID forms did not include
"a valid county issued voter registration card"

Yet a valid voter registration card is an acceptable form of ID one can use to obtain a TXDL or other state issued ID card...which were listed as part of the original 7 ID forms.

Historically, the Valid Voter Registration Card was the preferred form of ID....
so, many polling sites were inconsistent in requiring people to sign the supplemental ID affidavit if they had their valid voter registration card & it matched the voter registration roll data.
(No one asked me for additional ID or to sign an affidavit when I presented my voter registration card, but at other sites they may have)

Also, at least in my county, there was no obvious mention of a 6 day return period associated with any affidavit option... so, if that was part of the final court ruling regarding the additional forms of ID / affidavit, then I doubt that most counties had established processes designed to deal with that.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/politics/amp/Everything-you-need-to-know-about-voting-in-San-10415062.php

http://m.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2016/10/28/bexar-county-sued-for-misleading-voters-on-id-law

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

19. "May have" - is it too much to ask that news reports be... you know, factual reporting &

not speculation?

Yet another perfect example how the news media is biased not right or left, but in favor of making lots of money - and that's measured in lots of clicks. Great clickbait headline -that's all that really matters. Quality of reporting - not so much.

[LiberalFighter]

22. The question should be "Were they properly registered and eligible to vote?"

[cannabis_flower]

24. And it didn't..

make a hill of beans worth of difference in the presidential race or any of the statewide races.

[Chasstev365]

26. BUT THEY WERE WHITE REPUBLICANS, RIGHT?

[riversedge]

27. Stupid headline. They followed procedure of signing the affidavit!!!

[Auntie Bush]

28. Since Texas is a red state...then dumpster got a lot of false votes.

So now Hillary beat him for even more.

[Progressive dog]

29. Sounds like real fake news to me

It doesn't even make sense.

[pnwmom]

32. So a tiny fraction of voters cast provisional ballots that weren't counted. nt

[Gothmog]

34. The claim may be that these voters may have had an approved id but still voted by RID

RID is the reasonable impairment declaration. In theory, if you have one of the approved ids, you had to go back to your house and get to vote. The catch is if you lost or could not find the id, then you could vote by RID.

[dooner]

35. Here's a link to the longer AP story

Sounds like voters weren't supposed to use an affidavit if they owned a photo ID.
http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/AP-Exclusive-Hundreds-of-Texans-may-have-voted-10942511.php