Texas ballot rejection rates actually dropped under the very law liberals called voter suppression.
While an Obama-appointed judge in Boston was busy swatting down Trump's mail ballot verification order for a second time, two separate courts quietly handed election security advocates a massive double win, as reported here. The 5th Circuit reinstated nine provisions of a 2021 Texas election law, and Minnesota's highest court backed witness signature requirements for absentee ballots. Both rulings absolutely torched the go-to liberal playbook of screaming discrimination every time someone suggests verifying a voter's identity.
Let's talk about Texas first because the numbers are absolutely devastating for the opposition. Judge Andrew Oldham, a Trump appointee writing for a unanimous panel, found that groups challenging the state's mail ballot ID rules had zero standing. They couldn't prove their members faced any real risk of future harm. Here's the kicker that should make every talking head on cable news choke on their coffee. Under the supposedly suppressive law, ballot rejection rates nosedived from roughly 11 to 12 percent all the way down to 2.7 percent. Fewer ballots got tossed. More voters successfully participated. The law literally worked better for everyone.
The court also slammed the door on another favorite liberal legal maneuver. Local prosecutors who enforce election crimes cannot be sued for disability discrimination under the ADA simply because they enforce the law. That creative legal theory, which treated any election law enforcement as inherently discriminatory against disabled voters, just got its legs chopped off.
Now over to the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Minnesota's Supreme Court ruled that third party ballot collectors, the folks who gather and deliver other people's absentee ballots, still have to comply with witness signature requirements. Election officials retain the authority to verify those signatures are legit. Roughly 6,000 ballots got rejected in the litigation at issue for failing to meet those standards, and the court said those rejections were perfectly valid.
This is common sense stuff, folks. If your state allows random people to collect and transport other citizens' ballots, a practice ripe for coercion and shenanigans, then at minimum you should verify the witness signatures are authentic. Opponents call that suppression. Courts are increasingly calling it the law.
The bigger story here is about a pattern that deserves to be called out by name. Federal disability statutes, the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. These were all created to safeguard genuine civil rights. Instead, they've been systematically repurposed as legal wrecking balls aimed at any election security measure that makes progressives uncomfortable, regardless of whether the measure has anything to do with race or disability.
The data from Texas obliterated the discrimination narrative. The law produced better outcomes, not worse. Two courts took notice. Now it's time for the rest of the country to pay attention.
Read more conservative news commentary at: USA Journal News
