The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that lack of immunity to the coronavirus does not qualify as a physical disability granting people the right to vote by mail.
Chief Justice Nathan Hecht was joined by six other justices on the nine-seat court, who ruled that contracting a disease is not a physical condition and that if the criteria were expanded, then the disability category would be rendered useless, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had argued against the notion that contracting the coronavirus is a disability that should warrant a mail-in ballot, while the Texas Democratic Party had been advocating expanded mail-in voting due to the pandemic and had won cases in lower courts.
The ruling is a loss for the Texas Democratic Party and voting rights groups who had pushed for expanded mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic and had won temporary victories in lower courts.
Several expanded mail-in voting cases are playing out at the same time, with an appeals court currently considering whether to stay an order from a district judge allowing those without virus immunity to vote by mail. The legal battle is expected to continue up to the primary runoff election scheduled for July 14, with early voting starting on June 29, according to the Dallas Morning News.
“Big win in Texas on the dangerous Mail In Voting Scam!” President Trump responded to the news on Twitter.
Texas Supreme Court: Lack of immunity to COVID-19 alone not enough to vote by mail https://t.co/rAZVRF4nkj Big win in Texas on the dangerous Mail In Voting Scam!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2020
Trump has been railing against the push by Democrats across the country to expand mail-in voting via the argument that polling places are too dangerous due to the coronavirus outbreak.
“Standing in those lines, for that amount of time, going to places that are enclosed, is dangerous to your health,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said while defending the decision made by House Democrats to include $3.6 billion of funding into their coronavirus relief package proposal, adding that voting by mail is “more democratic.”
Republicans have argued that mail-in voting is vulnerable to voter fraud, citing a long list of documented voter fraud cases: More than 28 million missing mail-in ballots of the last decade, ballot harvesting, and examples of voter fraud concerns that have surfaced in the past week in Maryland and West Virginia.
