AUSTIN (Nexstar) — We had a viewer reach out to us, saying her mail-in ballot instructions were incorrect.
This comes after thousands of mail-in ballots were rejected in the primary election a couple months ago, because voters simply were not aware of new voting rules.
We took her concerns to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, and found out she had received an old mail-in ballot from 2017.
Before CK Carman mails in her ballot this election, she’s triple-checking the instructions to make sure she does everything right.
That’s how she noticed her ballot was missing some key information.
“They missed a step, which is the important step which were you have to fill in a driver’s license or last for your social security number,” Carman said. “And that’s not on this instruction.”
The Texas Secretary of State’s Office confirmed the ballot instructions Carman received were from five years ago.
“That even makes it all worse, if that’s the case,” Carman said.
Sam Taylor with the Secretary of State’s office said her case seems to just be a fluke — at least from what the office can tell right now.
“We’re still trying to really determine exactly what might have happened if an old form was sent out,” Taylor said. “If it was a widespread issue, we would have heard about it by now, because voters would be calling us off the hook and counties would be calling us off the hook saying that people are confused about this.”
You do want to make sure you look out for some key differences, as the mail-in ballot process has changed since the November 2021 election. There are two separate instruction forms for the ballot and carrier envelopes.
“A lot of counties…have been adding additional inserts with graphics on it to remind voters not to forget to put those id numbers because that was a big issue that we saw back in March,” Taylor said.
There’s now a bright orange slip that voters will receive with their mail-in ballot that reminds them about the new step.
Carman just wants to make sure everyone pays close attention.
“You’ve got to double check, maybe triple check,” she said.
The Secretary of State’s office said you can find the instructions for the new mail-in ballot voting law on the VoteTexas.gov website. Instructions are also available in Spanish.
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