TIME: Texas Primary Unfolds as Advocates Sound the Alarm About Mail Ballot Rejections

Pam Gaskin has been handing out campaign flyers since she was nine years old—the year, she says, that she was first allowed to walk down the street without supervision. Now 74, Gaskin, a resident of Fort Bend County and a member of the League of Women Voters, has helped register voters for decades.

But this year, she says, is different. An expansive voting law that Texas enacted earlier this year has led to widespread confusion among voters attempting to vote by mail in today’s primary, leading to sky-high ballot-application and ballot rejection rates, according to local election officials. “I know how to read and follow directions,” Gaskin says. “This is a form that is designed incorrectly.”

Harris County, which is home to Houston, reported on Feb. 22 that nearly a third of the mail ballots they’ve received have been rejected, due to the state’s new ID requirements, according to the county election office’s spokesperson. Many voters who are not accustomed to providing their driver’s license numbers or the last four digits of their social security numbers have left the fields blank, while others have provided accurate ID numbers that do not necessarily match what election officials have on file.

The result, election officials say, is an “alarmingly high” rejection rate. …

Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, describes provisions like the Texas one and accompanying voting restrictions as “death by a thousand cuts.” “When you put so many restrictions on the election that a certain percentage of people can’t vote or don’t have votes counted then the election is no longer a reflection of the will of the people,” Albert says.