Texas Democrats lost another attempt to overturn the state’s election law that limits no-excuse mail-in voting to voters who are 65 years of age or older.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Democrats’ request to hear arguments intended to force Texas and other states to accept universal voting by mail.
Lower courts have rejected their claims multiple times.
Under Texas law, only voters 65 or older, disabled, in jail, or outside their home county during an election are eligible to vote by mail.
The Texas Democrat Party filed a lawsuit in early 2020 seeking to make voting by mail universal, using fears about the COVID-19 outbreak as an excuse to push their preferred policies.
After losing that case, the Democrats changed their argument, claiming that Texas’ mail-ballot age restriction is unconstitutional notwithstanding COVID-19 concerns. Courts rejected that claim as well.
Attorneys from Texas and California then filed a petition in December asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider their argument that state-imposed age limits on mail-ballot voting violate the Constitution’s Twenty-Sixth Amendment:
The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
Texas Democrats have unsuccessfully pursued “universal, no-excuse vote by mail” for years, along with other policies that make voting less secure, including it in their party platform.
Democrats nationwide want federal courts to overturn state laws and allow everyone to vote by mail, a process more vulnerable to fraud and abuse than in-person voting.
“The only way to truly vote securely and secretly is in person, inside the polling location,” Christine Welborn, president of election security advocacy group Advancing Integrity, told Texas Scorecard. “Voting by mail should be used only when absolutely necessary.”
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