Today, Battleground Texas' Legal Director Mimi Marziani sent a letter formally notifying Texas Secretary of State Carlos H. Cascos that Battleground Texas is prepared to file a lawsuit if the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) continues to violate Section 5 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). This Act is more commonly referred to as the
Motor Voter law because "Section 5 requires state motor vehicle offices to provide voter registration opportunities to anyone applying for a new or renewed driver's license or state identification card."
Simply put, under the Motor Voter law, the DPS must assist in registering voters, yet many Texans who wished to register to vote or to update their voter registrations have been disenfranchised by that office's ongoing failures to comply with the law. Here's one such story from Texas keeping thousands from registering to vote, voting group alleges:
In interviews with msnbc, would-be voters expressed frustration and anger as they recounted going through the required registration procedures, only to be denied when they went to vote.
Totysa Watkins said that soon after she moved within the city of Irving in 2013, she updated her driver’s license and voter registration address online. But when she went to vote last November—bringing her five-year-old daughter with her to show her the importance of voting—Watkins was told she wasn’t on the rolls and forced to cast a provisional ballot. Two weeks later, she got a letter from the county saying her ballot had been rejected because there was no record of her voter registration application on file.
“I have been voting since I was 21, and to receive a letter that says my vote didn’t count just upset me. I feel like my voice wasn’t heard,” Watkins, who is 39 and African-American, said in an interview. “Even now, talking about it, it brings tears to my eyes.”
In the letter Marziani sent, other voters' experiences are recounted in a more clinical fashion. After getting the runaround from both the TX SOS and the DPS, for example, one voter's provisional ballot was counted:
Richard Gates: Mr. Gates moved to Collin County from Massachusetts in July of 2014. He and his husband registered their cars and applied for new drivers’ licenses at the Garland DPS location shortly after moving. Both Mr. Gates and his husband indicated that they wanted to register to vote during the driver’s license application process. A month or so later, Mr. Gates’ husband received his voter registration card in the mail; Mr. Gates did not receive one. They went to the Haggard Library during the early voting period and — while his husband was able to vote — Mr. Gates was told that he was not registered. Eventually, he was offered a provisional ballot. Mr. Gates declined to vote a provisional ballot at that time in order to investigate his registration status. He contacted the Secretary of State’s office to discuss his attempt to vote, but was told to contact DPS about the matter; DPS, in turn, told him to contact the Secretary of State. [my emphasis] He then went to the Davis Library location later in the early-voting period and, after again confirming that he was not listed as a registered voter in the database, he cast a provisional ballot. Mr. Gates later received a letter indicating that his provisional ballot was counted, as well as two registration cards, one effective as of August 21, 2014 and another effective as of December 3, 2014.
Another voter's provisional ballot, however, was not counted:
De’Andre Carter: Mr. Carter moved to Dallas County in May of 2013 after graduating from Texas A&M University in College Station. He renewed his driver’s license at a Dallas DPS location in July of 2014, and recalls checking the “yes” box to register to vote in Dallas. Mr. Carter received a new license in the mail a few weeks later, but did not receive a new voter registration card. In preparation for Election Day in November 2014, Mr. Carter called Dallas County to confirm his polling location, but was told that he was still registered in College Station. Upon explaining his attempt to register at DPS, he was told by election officials that the DPS system “was not caught up.” Mr. Carter was told that he could cast a provisional ballot, and later went to a polling location and did so; he does not recall being advised to take any further action to ensure that his vote was counted. Ultimately, Mr. Carter received a letter in the mail advising him that his vote was not counted. He later received a voter registration card listing his current Dallas address.
There's no question that ALL of these individuals were eligible to vote in 2014. Yet when DPS failed its obligation to update their voter registrations, all were forced to cast provisional rather than regular ballots, and some later learned that their votes were not counted.
These were not isolated instances of voter disenfranchisement:
During the 18 months between September 2013 and February 2015, the Secretary of State’s Elections Division received more than 4,600 complaints from voters about voter registration practices at DPS.
- This included more than 1,700 complaints by voters who had checked “yes” they wanted to register to vote when they applied for a driver’s license at DPS but subsequently did not appear on the voter rolls.
- It also included more than 1,800 complaints by voters who updated their address online with DPS and mistakenly believed that their voter registration file was updated too.
From Battleground Texas' letter:
The voters’ experiences are consistent with other information described in this letter: (a) data maintained by the Elections Division of the Office of the Secretary of State, which shows that thousands of voters reported DPS voter registration problems between September 2013 and February 2015; (b) correspondence within DPS during and shortly after the 2012 general election, which was provided to us in response to a Public
Information Act request; and (c) the findings of a recent report by Battleground Texas
titled Voting in Texas in 2014.2 When combined with publicly-available data —including declining rates of voter registration within Texas —the conclusion is clear: DPS’ voter registration failures are widespread and systematically undermining the right to vote in Texas [my emphasis].
Action
Tell your story:
Battleground's letter to the TX SOS points out the following:
Voters continue to contact the undersigned counsel with their problems registering to vote through DPS. As additional voters come forward, they too may decide to share their stories with the State.
Did you or anyone you know run into problems trying to vote in Texas during recent years? If so, please consider telling your story to
Mimi Marziani
Legal Director
Battleground Texas
1519 East Cesar Chavez, Suite 100
Austin, Texas 78702
(615) 293-5003
mmarziani @ battlegroundtexas.com
Register voters:
The legal steps that Battleground is taking are necessary, but Texas Democrats cannot afford to wait for this to play out in the courts. Please consider getting trained to register voters.
Then, when a voter tells you that they registered through DPS, ask whether they've received their new voter registration certificate and encourage them to let you update their voter registration, just in case.
More reading:
Battleground Texas' 20-page letter to Texas Secretary of State: Failure to Comply with Voter Registration Obligations at Texas Department of Public Safety
Voting in Texas in 2014: This 26-page report identifies problems voters have encountered in Texas and recommends solutions.
