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Bob Daemmrich\/Zuma<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n On Wednesday,<\/span> the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling blocking key measures of Texas\u2019 sweeping voter suppression law, SB 1. <\/p>\n A lower court previously ruled that the law, which effectively made it harder for people to vote with assistance, violated disability civil rights laws. It also created more barriers to voting by mail.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has long been established that mail-in ballots are prone to fraud,\u201d Judge Andrew Oldham wrote, according to Democracy Docket<\/a>. \u201cThat is why voting by mail jeopardizes election integrity and democracy itself.\u201d<\/p>\n There is no evidence that mail-in ballots are \u201cprone to fraud.\u201d An analysis from the Brookings One of the plaintiffs of the initial lawsuit, La Union del Pueblo Entero v. Abbott, filed in 2021, is the historically Black sorority Delta Sigma Theta. One of its members, Candace Wicks told me in 2024<\/a> that she was frustrated about the barriers disabled people faced while voting since SB. 1. <\/p>\n Disabled people, Wicks said, \u201cface barriers every day in terms of discrimination in our daily lives.\u201d SB1, which she sees as a form of disenfranchisement, is\u00a0to her just one example.\u00a0 \u201cWe need to make our democracy accessible to everybody, regardless of our ability,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Research from the Brennan Center found that SB 1 in Texas had devastating impacts when many of its provisions in effect. A 2025 research pape<\/a>r found that thousands of Texans, disproportionately people of color, had their ballots rejected in the 2022 primary due to SB. 1. People whose ballots were rejected were less likely to vote in the 2022 general election in November and also were less likely to vote in 2024.<\/p>\n Wednesday\u2019s ruling could impact turnout for the 2026 Texas Senate race, where Democrat James Talarico has a shot at flipping that Texas Senate seat Blue in a contest against Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n <\/s>Institution found<\/a> an \u201caverage total mail voting fraud percentage across the 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 general elections of only 0.000043 [percent].\u201d Or, about 4 votes per 10 million votes. Mail-in voting can be very important for disabled and aging people, who otherwise may have to deal with accessibility challenges with getting to the polls and access issues when voting itself. <\/p>\n\n