I had not skipped an election in 40 years — even the tiny ones when I was one of 15 or so in my precinct to show up. So skipping this important primary was a decision I did not take lightly. I mention it here as a cautionary tale for all of us.
Having always enjoyed the act of going to the polls on election day (and also enjoying the right to change my mind until the last day), I had never looked into either early voting or mail-in voting. So this one snuck up on me, I admit it. While I follow politics extremely closely, my habit has not been to pay much attention to planning when and how to vote; I just show up at the polls pretty much whenever my morning reading informs me that an election is happening.
Being squarely in the population most vulnerable to Covid, I’ve become home-bound. Other than going to the grocery store once every six weeks or so, I work in my garden for exercise. The Texas primary popped up during a week when Texas cases were spiking big time — and I had just been to the store to discover that most people were fed up with social distancing or even wearing their masks to cover their noses. So I made the decision to — just this once — skip the chaos of the polls on election day.
I then set out to learn about mail-in voting for the general election. And lemme tell you, here in Texas it is not easy. First I had to print out the request. Being retired I don’t use the printer much anymore, so of course I had to order ink on Amazon before getting a good look at the application (PDF, sideways on the screen with tiny print).
Turns out Texas wants to scare off mail-in voters. You must declare, “under penalty of perjury,” that you are disabled — otherwise no mail-in voting for you, unless you’re over 65. I am, in fact, disabled, so no problem there. But it occurred to me that many Texans would not want to risk charges of “voter fraud” — and then maybe repelled from the polls later if Covid spikes.
There’s a bit of a campaign here among Dems to signal to voters that no one will be policing their disability statements. Here’s what Congressman Lloyd Doggett wrote yesterday in a letter to my neighborhood forum:
Anyone under 65 with any physical condition creating a likelihood of injuring their health at the polls may do the same [declare a disability]. With COVID-19 infections and deaths surging, amid fall flu season, many Texans can wisely choose this method to protect their health, even those who don’t ordinarily consider themselves disabled. Lack of immunity alone is insufficient, but each individual decides whether qualified such as considering a CDC-identified heightened risk factor including pregnancy, asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart conditions, cancer, sickle cell disease, chronic kidney disease, smoking or even obesity. You decide for yourself; no disability police decide for you.
This statement skirts Attorney General Ken Paxton’s intimidating and stark warning that “lack of immunity to the coronavirus is not a disability.” So, a bit of a battle going on here.
Hopefully I’ll receive my mail-in ballot on time, and hopefully my vote will be counted. But it does seem that many other less die-hard voters are at risk of not making it through the process, considering someone like me actually missed an election!
So I simply want to reinforce the message that everyone should PLAN their votes, and PLAN EARLY. Pass the word!