Texans with COVID-19 who want to vote on Election Day have these two options
Texans who recently contracted the coronavirus and were planning to vote in person Tuesday have two options to make sure their ballot is cast for the presidential election while protecting others’ health.
Option one is curbside voting, The Texas Tribune says. In some counties, voters can schedule a voting time or call when they arrive at a polling location where election officials will bring ballot materials to your car.
State law says people who are “physically unable to enter the polling place without personal assistance or likelihood of injuring the voter’s health” can take advantage of this voting method, according to WFAA.
In Dallas and Collin counties, for example, voters can vote on portable touch screen machines, WFAA reported. In Denton County, voters will be given a traditional paper ballot to be filled out in their car.
Election officials suggest calling your county elections office ahead of time to make sure you are eligible for curbside voting and to determine if a doctor’s note or coronavirus test result is required.
Such documentation is needed for the second voting option — emergency ballots.
Registered voters in Texas with a “qualifying” disability are usually able to request absentee ballots up until 11 days before the election; this year the deadline was Oct. 23, according to BuzzFeed. But this option is no longer available for voters who contract the coronavirus before Election Day.
Instead, they must request what election officials call an emergency ballot, and they can only do so if they provide a certified doctor’s note or other proof of a coronavirus positive test result, several outlets report.
“We certainly don’t want to disenfranchise any of our voters,” McLennan County Elections Administrator Kathy Van Wolfe told 25ABC. “We certainly want to make the voting experience good for our voters, but because of COVID-19, we have had to put in some different protocols.”
The first step is to designate an “authorized agent” to pick up an emergency ballot request form from your county’s election office, Van Wolfe told the outlet. Once the agent returns the form along with a doctor’s note, election workers will give the agent the official emergency ballot by 5 p.m. on Election Day — if approved.
The ballot must be returned to the elections office by 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 3.
