Texas' election won't have straight-ticket voting, appeals court rules, dealing blow to Dems

Texas voters will not have the option to cast a ballot for every candidate of a single political party with one mark during the November election, a federal appeals court said on Wednesday evening.

Texas offered straight-ticket voting for decades, but in 2017, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law eliminating the option beginning in the 2020 general election. A federal judge reinstated the practice this month, citing concerns about how the coronavirus pandemic could affect voting.

But the 5th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision Wednesday, ruling that changes shouldn't be made so close to the Nov. 3 election.

“The Texas Legislature passed HB 25 in 2017, and state election officials have planned for this election accordingly. The state election machinery is already well in motion,” the panel of three judges, two of whom are conservative, wrote. Eliminating straight-ticket voting and upholding the 2017 law, they said, “will minimize confusion among both voters and trained election officials.”

While most states do not have straight-ticket voting, the option to vote for every candidate from one political party accounted for close to 64% of total votes cast in Texas' 10 largest counties in the 2016 general election.

Democrats had sued election offici... (Read more)

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