“We stand by the legal advice the County Attorney’s Office has given Harris County officials: a person who could contract the COVID-19 virus by voting in person may request a mail ballot because the Election Code defines “disability” to include a “physical condition” that “prevents the voter from appearing” in person “without a likelihood . . . of injuring the voter’s health.”
We are not talking about ‘fear’ or a “sickness” but the “physical condition” almost all of us share now: a lack of immunity to a deadly disease.
We in the Harris County Attorney’s Office ¾ and the only judge who has ruled on the issue ¾ believe COVID-19 places all voters in the position of possibly contracting a disease that may be fatal or cause severe suffering with long-term health consequences—that is, “injuring the voter’s health”—should they be forced to vote in person. The plain language of that statutory definition does not require a current medical condition but rather includes those whose health may be injured by appearing in person to vote.
It is not the place of the government to question the good faith determination of voters requesting mail ballots because they wish to protect their health by avoiding in-person voting.
As I have said before: citizens should not have to risk their health in order to exercise their constitutional right to vote in an election.
