but it is working for them as planned. even in the high rent district s. the new texas voting restrictions were like in many states, they were passed on the pretext that all that election fraud that made elections stolen, justified a lot of new laws in texas to make it harder to vote in that state. that is paying off already. saw the headline this weekend, election officials in texas reject hundreds of ballot applications under the new states voting restrictions. quote election officials and one of the most populous counties in texas have rejected about half of the applications for ballots because of the states new voting restrictions enacted by republicans last year. texas republicans last year, passed their bill, establishing new limits on voting over the objections of democrats. part of a wave of effort led by republican led states, part of me, a wave of efforts by republican led states to impose new restrictions. many in the republican party echoed former president trump s baseless
the vote of freedom of vote act, but he doesn t want to pass it. going back to the subtle changes you are talking about. 50% of mail-in ballot applications are being rejected? it s between 40 and 50, but we re talking about county where san antonio is. we re seeing a enormous, enormous rejection rates. this is going to lead to literally tens of thousands of votes being rejected. and i m bringing this up again, because i m wondering, what is up with those people in those counties. where in my mail in ballot is rejected, what recourse do i have to fight that id objection? do we have any under this law? you really have to rely on the county officials to try to work with you, to try to find ways to get it accepted. already, it s big difficult to vote by mail.
right? do we know if they show up in person anyway? or do we have any way of tracking what that looks like? we do. only one in four people whose mail ballot applications were rejected subsequently voted in person. so 75% of people who are rejected are choosing not to vote. i think that that makes sense. people want to vote by mail for specific reasons. they probably can t get to the polls, or they do not want to go to the polls during a pandemic because they are not willing to take that risk, or they are not able to take that kind of risk. what we are seeing is real world evidence of voter disenfranchisement. i think that is the most important takeaway from the story. you have mitch mcconnell saying states are not engaging in voter suppression, you have joe manchin saying that no one is going to be obstructed from voting, well people are being obstructed from voting. they are being obstructed from voting in a record number. we are seeing massive increases in voter disenfranchisement.
the effects of that in counties across the country. especially and particularly where there are large communities of color. and of course, in georgia. you have counties whose mail-in ballot applications are being rejected. sometimes the rate is as high as 50%. and that is intentional. that is deliberately aimed at disenfranchising people of color who, unfortunately, the republican party of today blames for the election of this president and of the two democratic senators, for example, from the state of georgia. so you have to push back on the narrative of mass voter fraud whenever you re given the opportunity. otherwise, folks who hear something from tucker carlson or someone of like mind on similar networks is going to believe what they hear. believe what they hear
passed by november, the mere suggestion it might be harder to vote is already perhaps suppressing the vote before a single ballot has passed in the midterms. this, week a poll by found we ll expect to be somewhat or very difficult to vote in 2022, compared to just 7% of black voters who felt that way about their voting experience in 2020. berman is one of the for most supporters of by gop voting restrictions from jones, and he is also the author of give us the ballot, moderate struggle for voting rights in america, and he joins me now. take me through the mouth here, and the cause and effect. so, what is it about the new voter law that was passed that is leading to this wildly elevated rate of rejections for absentee ballots? hi chris. thank you for having me. we found that male ballot applications are 45 times more