US judge blocks Abbott order limiting ballot drop-off locations

[pnwmom]

Source: Statesman News Network

A federal judge issued an order Friday night barring enforcement of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Oct. 1 proclamation that limited counties to one mail-in ballot drop-off location.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman said Abbott’s order placed an unacceptable burden on the voting rights of elderly and disabled Texans, who are most likely to request a mail-in ballot and to hand deliver those ballots early to ensure that they are counted.

These voters are also particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, the judge said.

“By limiting ballot return centers to one per county, older and disabled voters living in Texas’s largest and most populous counties must travel further distances to more crowded ballot return centers where they would be at an increased risk of being infected by the coronavirus in order to exercise their right to vote and have it counted,” Pitman wrote.

Read more: https://www.statesman.com/news/20201009/us-judge-blocks-abbott-order-limiting-ballot-drop-off-locations

[Sapient Donkey]

1. Do they even attempt to justify actions like this?

I assume they have to have some reason why they claim they are doing it, but I can't ever find anything. Do they not even try?

[onetexan]

14. Abbott &the aholes in TX say its for election security

U know the same garbage they use to justify every damn thing they do under the guise of security.

Hopefully the ruling w stand as we are less than 30 days till the election. They need to reopen those dropoff sites asap to acommodate the backlog.

[Thekaspervote]

2. That's good news. Rachael featured this story. Houston has had one box for possibly

Tens of thousands of ballots. The cars were backed up for a 3/4 mile. She said the only good thing was the line was moving quickly....can’t imagine

[onetexan]

15. Yes i saw. Houston has a large black community & it certainly would have disenfranchised those

Further out from the single dropsite. Dems need to front a strong challenger for gov in 2022, & hopefully Dems can take back the tx House. Im beyond mad at this point.

[SCantiGOP]

3. About damn time

[LeftInTX]

5. It will be overturned

[NCjack]

4. Keeping TX Red is at risk. Abbott likely will not comply.

[BootinUp]

6. Ok Texans, there you go. nt

[not_the_one]

7. If they have already been removed, the Putin's GOP will NOT put them back, per judge order or not.

Apparently NO ONE can make them, and there are no consequences for not abiding the judge's orders.

The only consequence is that there will be fewer votes, more likely fewer democratic votes. Plus it would add to the argument that the election was such a clusterfuck (which Putin's GOP and the turd totally caused) it could only be decided by supreme court.

[Scruffy1]

9. It's really up to the counties.

Elections are run by the counties in Texas. I'm sure most counties will will replace them. Well at least the Democratic ones.

[yellowdogintexas]

12. only two counties had the auxiliary drop off locations: Harris and Travis nt

[dalton99a]

8. Kick

[iluvtennis]

10. K&R. nt

[relayerbob]

11. Good news

[ananda]

13. Yay!

This is particularly good news for Houston
(Or Harris County)!

[Nexus2]

16. What was Abbot's supposed

reasoning and justification for this? Is there any else than the current GOP mottos "If you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'" and "Its technically legal, the best kind of legal!"

[Lonestarblue]

17. I know that states run elections, but we need some national laws.

An Ohio judge ruled that Ohio can limit drop-off boxes to one per county while a US judge rules that Texas cannot. Ex-felons can't vote in some states while they can in others. Some states can purge voter rolls at will while others can not (or do not). We need consistent voting rules across the states.