Houston’s Mass Mail Ballot Plan Scuttled at State High Court

(Bloomberg) -- The 2.4 million registered voters in Houston's most populous county won't receive applications to vote by mail unless they request them, under a Texas Supreme Court order that the emerging battleground state's Republican leadership fought hard to win.

Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins had won approval to send out the forms from lower courts dominated by Democratic judges. But Texas's high court reversed those decisions and sided with Texas and the state Republican Party, which argued that a flood of unsolicited mail-ballot applications would encourage millions of people who don't qualify to vote by mail.

”Because no other election official in Texas is doing or has ever done what the clerk proposes, his plan threatens to undermine the statutorily required uniform operation of election laws across the state,” the court said.

Houston is the nation's fourth-largest city. Harris County, which has voted Democratic in the last two national elections, is the largest in Texas, with nearly 4.8 million residents. Democratic nominee Joe Biden has been challenging President Donald Trump in a number of recent state polls.

Read More: Third-Biggest U.S. County Wins Vote-by-Mail Ruling in Texas

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