HOUSTON, TEXAS - FEBRUARY 25: A Poll worker waits for voters to arrive at the Metropolitan-Multi Service Center on February 25, 2022 in Houston, Texas. People across the Houston metropolitan area continue to cast their ballots during early primary voting. has dropped precipitously since 2018, with tens of thousands of voters — especially Republicans — ditching the forms after two years of the GOP’s baseless claims that absentee voting facilitates fraud.
The dropoff is most dramatic among Republicans, whose party has repeatedly alleged, without evidence, that state-approved expansions of mail ballots during the pandemic led to widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The number dropped slightly for Democrats, too. More than 50,000 Democratic voters in those counties have cast an absentee ballot this year, compared to 59,000 in 2018.to Texas’ new voting law, which instituted extra ID requirements for mail-in ballots and the applications for them. Thousands of voters have been thrown off by the additional mandate, either forgetting to add their ID or writing down one that doesn’t match their voter record.
Statewide, roughly 9.6 percent of Texas’ 17.2 million registered voters have cast a ballot so far. More than 120,000 of them have done so by mail.