FORT BEND COUNTY, Texas — Many Texas voters said getting their mail-in ballots this year has turned into a real pain.
One woman in Fort Bend County said her and her husband’s requests were rejected twice before they were able to get their ballots.
Fort Bend County reported half of its requests for mail-in ballots were getting rejected earlier this month.
The elections administrator said things are getting better, though.
Fort Bend County has mailed nearly 2,800 absentee ballots for this year’s primary elections as of Tuesday, according to the county’s elections administrator, John Oldham.
Oldham said the county has mailed out about 2,000 ballots to Democrats and 750 to Republicans.
Getting them hasn’t been easy.
“(The elections office worker) said we had the wrong form on the website, we didn’t load it up until the sixth,” Fort Bend County voter Pam Gaskin said.
Gaskin and her husband downloaded the new form and tried again.
“I grabbed it, filled it out, sent it in,” Gaskin said. “I got a call seven days later. She said, “Don’t shoot the messenger but you got rejected again.’ I said, ‘Why?’ She said, ‘The ID that you put on there did not match the ID in your voter record when you first registered to vote. I said, 'That was 46 years ago, I don’t remember what ID I used then.’"
When Gaskin first registered to vote in Fort Bend County she used her Social Security number.
“She provided a TDL number when what we have in our system is Social, so that was rejected,” Oldham said.
The mail-in ballot request form asks for either a Social Security number or a driver’s license number.
Until recently, if the number a voter provided wasn’t on file with the county, the request was rejected.
Oldham is advising voters to go ahead and put down both numbers to make sure their requests go through.
To receive a mail-in ballot you must either be: 65 or older, sick or disabled, out of the county on election day, about to give birth or in jail.
The deadline to request one is Feb. 18.
Gaskin and her husband’s ballots arrived Monday.
It was her third attempt.
For qualified absentee voters who may be frustrated by the process – she says don’t quit.
“The right to vote is a blood-bought right and I tell people to hang in there, it’s worth it, this is your citizenship,” Gaskin said. “Don’t give up.”