A 95-year-old World War II veteran in Texas says his mail-in ballot was rejected twice because of restrictive voting laws put in place by the state's GOP.
Kenneth Thompson, a U.S. Army veteran who served in the European Theatre during World War II, told local outlets that he fears these rejections mean he will be unable to vote. This would mark the first time in Thompson's adult life, he said, that he would be prohibited from casting a ballot.
"I've been voting many, many years and I've never missed a vote," Thompson told KPRC-TV. He recalled memories of going to vote in the 1950s, stating he had to pay a 25 cent tax to do so.
Because of new voting law Texas Senate Bill 1, implemented by state Republicans, Thompson's ability to vote by mail could be hindered. Texas SB 1 requires voters to submit either a partial social security number or driver's license number in order to have their ballot validated.
Two of Thompson's ballots were rejected because they lacked this information. However, Thompson stated that he was not informed of this fact until he inquired with local election officials.
Thompson's daughter, Delinda Holland, told KPRC-TV that these new requirements are more stringent than when her father was growing up.
"He registered to vote in the 1940s and they didn't require that," Holland stated.
Holland attempted unsuccessfully to add her father's driver's license number online through the Texas Secretary of State's Office, as well as through local officials. Texas is one of nearly a dozen states that do not allow online voter registration, according to Raw Story.
Thompson cautioned that, because nobody reached out to him regarding his ballots, a similar outcome could happen with others, leaving citizens unaware of invalid registrations as Texas' March primary inches closer.
"There's gonna be a lot of people not gonna vote," Thompson stated. "If I hadn't have called in about mine, people wouldn't have known."
"He's a law-abiding citizen," Holland said of her father. "He doesn't want to miss voting, and yet, there's no mechanism to add that driver's license to your record."
Thompson must reregister before the January 31 deadline in order to maintain valid mail-in voter status. Otherwise, he told KPRC-TV, he will go to vote in-person.
Thompson added that, while he was well enough to vote in-person, "lots of [other] people just can't."
Across social media, veterans activist groups and politicians expressed their anger with Thompson's inability to vote.
This is reprehensible and unacceptable," tweeted VoteVets, a political group dedicated to veteran's rights.
"This is what anti-voter laws do," Representative Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., tweeted. "They demean our seniors — like WWII veterans — and make us less free."
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo tweeted that "percentage-wise we're rejecting 7 times more mail ballot apps than before, because of new TX voter suppression laws that create a maze of technicalities."
The Texas Secretary of State's Office told the Texas Tribune that they were working to backfill voter records to include as many mail-in voters as possible. However, James Slattery, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, told the Tribune that "at the moment, it's the voters that are facing the consequences."
Newsweek has reached out to the Texas Secretary of State's Office for comment.
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