Texas Lt. Governor Bungle Could Make Voting Harder…For Republicans
Last month, Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick sent thousands of pre-addressed envelopes to Texas Republicans to request mail-in ballots. But the envelopes were pre-addressed to the Texas Secretary of State instead of to their local election offices. Now, this hacky, partisan move could make voting in the March primary difficult or even impossible…for registered Republicans.
The mass-mailing came with the wrong address went out specifically to Republicans in the Lone Star State, along with the envelopes addressed to the Texas secretary of state. Requests for mail-in ballots are SUPPOSED to be sent to local elections offices. The Texas Tribune reports that Patrick’s campaign defended the alt-address by saying, “many Republican voters are rightly suspicious of Blue County election officials”. That claim doesn’t come with any actual evidence of vote fraud in any majority Democrat counties in the state.
What the gimmick DOES do is gum up the works. The secretary of state’s office is going through the slow, grueling process of sending those applications BACK to the local election offices…where they SHOULD have been sent in the first place. Because of delays, some registered Republicans may not get their absentee ballot back in time to vote in the Republican primary.
You would think that this kind of shoot-yourself-in-the-foot unforced error wouldn’t be worth the satisfaction of “owning the libs” or whatever. But, you have to remember, Patrick is the same Lt. Gov. who put out a $25,000 “bounty” for proof of election fraud…and then had to pay a Democrat poll-worker who reported a REPUBLICAN for attempting to vote twice in the 2020 election.
Yes, Dan Patrick is truly the master of the “self-own”.