Updated on Sept. 28 at 10:59 a.m. to include comment from Attorney General Ken Paxton.
AUSTIN -- A federal judge on Friday blocked Texas from implementing a repeal of straight-ticket voting ahead of the November elections.
U.S. District Judge Marina Garcia Marmolejo of Laredo said the law, enacted by a Republican-dominated Legislature in 2017, could cause long lines that would burden Texas voters and adversely affect the voting rights of Black and Hispanic voters, in violation of the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.
The continuing presence of the COVID-19 pandemic during the Nov. 3 election played a large role in Garcia Marmolejo’s order.
“Forcing Texas voters to stand in longer lines and increasing their exposure to a deadly virus burdens the right to vote,” Garcia Marmolejo wrote.
Garcia Marmolejo, a Barack Obama appointee, said keeping in place straight-ticket voting was about guaranteeing Texans a “more effective opportunity to cast a ballot” in a time when “additional time spent in line endangers the safety of voters, poll workers, and others not at the polls.”
“This is a matter of utmost importance to the constitutional rights of Texas citizens,” she wrote.
Attorney General Ken Paxton said he has requested a stay of the judge’s decision and will immediately appeal the injunction.
“I am disappointed that the Court departed from its prior reasoning and imposed straight ticket voting only weeks before a general election,” he said.
State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Republican from Houston, said the court’s ruling would not hold.
“[The] 5th Circuit has sided with existing Texas election law and 70,000 military ballots are out, and [the] 2017 law has been prepared for by election administrators,” Bettencourt said. “Activist federal judge will be overruled.”
The ban took effect at the start of September and the presidential election would have been the first in Texas in nearly a century without one-punch straight-ticket voting, which Democrats said disadvantaged voters of color.
The suit was brought by the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans, the national senatorial committee of the Democratic Party, the national congressional committee of the Democratic Party and Sylvia Bruni, chairwoman of the Webb County Democratic Party in South Texas.
“Today’s ruling is a victory for democracy and common sense. Allowing people to cast a straight-party ticket ballot means older voters can get in and out of their polling place more quickly,” Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said in a statement. “Seniors are at the highest risk from COVID-19, and should not be required to stand in unnecessarily lengthy lines at the polls.”
The Texas Democratic Party also celebrated the decision.
“Time and time again Republican leadership has tried to make it harder to vote and time and time again federal courts strike it down," Gilberto Hinojosa, the party’s chairman said in a statement. "Until the new Texas majority wipes out these out-of-touch Republicans, Texas Democrats will never stop fighting for Texans in court.”
Democrats previously sued to block the straight-ticket voting ban in March, but the court tossed that suit because it was unclear whether COVID-19 would still be an issue for the November elections. Garcia Marmolejo said she allowed a renewed challenge last month because the pandemic will continue to be a threat through the elections.
Garcia Marmolejo was swayed by the plaintiffs' arguments that removing straight-ticket voting would increase the time it took an individual voter to cast a ballot, which would in turn increase longer wait times and congestion at the polls.
She also said the July runoffs had provided a glimpse of the potential problems, with fewer poll workers and voting machines and no way to increase polling locations.
Garcia Marmolejo called “meritless” Secretary of State Ruth R. Hughs' argument that the state’s move to increase early voting by six days and expand the time to turn in mail ballots addressed the situation.
She also questioned the law’s stated reason of encouraging a more informed electorate and said it would not reduce confusion for people entering polling locations.
“In fact, eliminating a practice that Texan voters have been accustomed to for 100 years is more likely to cause confusion among voters than eliminating it would,” she wrote.
The court also noted that the state would carry a minimal burden compared to the possibility of a voter’s right to cast a ballot being abridged because voting machines across Texas had already been used to allow straight-ticket voting. The machines could easily be re-set to allow it again.
The order is a huge boon to down-ballot Democrats who are counting on the increased turnout during a presidential year to help them win their elections. It’s particularly important for Democrats in competitive congressional races and statehouse candidates who are trying to flip the Texas House for the first time since 2001.
During Beto O’Rourke’s U.S. Senate run in 2018, Democrats flipped 12 seats in the Texas House, largely on the power of down-ballot votes for Democrats. The party hopes that straight-ticket voting will help them again as they aim to pick up the additional nine seats they need to take the chamber from the GOP.
Austin Bureau Chief Robert T. Garrett contributed to this report.
