These Texas counties had 10% or more mail-in ballot rejections in 2016 and 2018 elections
As the 2020 presidential election nears, we're taking a look at the Texas counties that had the highest mail-in ballot rejections and the reason why.
Data obtained by ABC News shows that there were more than 400 counties in the United States where at least 5% of voters' mailed ballots were rejected in 2018. In 99 counties, 10% or more of mailed ballots were rejected.
That same data showed that in the state of Texas, seven counties were among the 99 where 10% or more of the mailed ballots were rejected.
The list below includes the Texas counties and their rejection rates:
- Goliad County had a 100% rejection rate after four of the mailed-in ballots returned were rejected.
- Harrison County had a 15% rate after 226 ballots were rejected.
- Grimes County's rejection rate was at 14.9% after data showed that 153 voters were rejected.
- Smith County had a 13.1% rejection rate when 754 mail-in ballots were rejected out of the 5,759 ballots that were returned.
- Coryell County had a 10.6% rejection rate due to 127 of mail-in ballots being rejected.
- Dawson County - Thirty-three mail-in ballots were rejected out of its 325 returned, which made its rejection rate 10.2%
- McCulloch County returned 189 of its mail-in ballots and rejected 19 of them, which was 10.1% rejection rate.
According to data, those rejected were due to either missing deadline, no voter's signature, and in some cases, the person had already voted.
In Harris County and surrounding areas, the voters' rejection rate was less than 5%
- Harris County had a 1.6% rejection rate, or about 1,500 of 96,233 returned ballots rejected.
- Fort Bend County had 3.1% of its returned ballots rejected.
- Montgomery County was below average after .5% of its returned ballots rejected
The majority of those returned were due to the fact that the voters' signature did not match the one on the accompanying carrier envelope.
In the 2016 presidential election, the overall rejection rate for mail-in ballots was about 95 per 10,000 ballots returned. Harris County, Fort Bend County, and Montgomery counties also had less than 5% of its mail-in ballots rejected.
In the state of Texas, Hardeman, Val Verde, Lamb, Jim Wells, Borden, Gregg, and Pecos counties had 10% or more of its ballots rejected. Data showed the ballots in this election were rejected due to signatures not matching.
Take a look a the ballots rejected in each county in the 2018 and 2016 elections.
SEE ALSO:
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Gov. Abbott issues order limiting where eligible voters can drop off mail-in ballots
New ballot tracking system introduced to Harris Co. voters
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