A federal appeals court has ruled that Texas cannot reinstate straight-ticket voting before November because it's too late.
This case bounced around in lower courts until the US Fifth Circuit Court ruled Wednesday night.
The state legislature did away with straight-ticket voting in 2017. Democrats had sued to restore it in March, saying the pandemic would lead to longer lines at the polls and straight-ticket voting could speed up the process.
"The Democrats would like to see straight ticket voting continue because it allows them to be able to monopolize on some of the big gains they've made in big urban counties. The problem for them is if it's on the ballot, Democrats have to vote all the way down. That's been harder to get Democrats to do in the past," said University of Houston political Scientist Brandon Rottinghaus.
He said it will be a perfect storm election and there will be a tremendous turnout. "You're going to have big urban counties move into vote centers. The likelihood is that you're talking about a tsunami of lines and that could discourage people from voting, which would be troublesome and make it difficult to see Texas as being competitive."
Rottinghaus said typically Republicans vote more often than Democrats and for down ballot seats, this will harm Democrats more. He says most people see Republicans as being more thorough voters. "There's a joke that Republicans drive by the polling place on Tuesday in case there's an election."
