Collier Calls for Full Accounting of VBM Applications Received and Forwarded by Secretary John B. Scott
Austin, Texas — The Texas Tribune released a report today indicating that John B. Scott, the Greg Abbott-appointed Texas Secretary of State (“SOS”) is going against previously stated election rules by forwarding vote-by-mail applications to county level offices—potentially favoring those solicited by Dan Patrick’s campaign.
Despite since-deleted language on the Secretary of State’s website warning that applications mailed to its office “will be rejected,” the Texas GOP’s hand-picked SOS has now decided “to sort and forward the Patrick-inspired forms to the counties where they should have been sent originally.”
According to the Tribune, the earlier language was removed from the website at the beginning of this month as it became clear that Patrick was mailing applications across the state. This follows the passage of SB 1 which made it a felony for local election officials to mail voters applications to vote-by-mail or even encourage voters to vote-by-mail.
Patrick has repeatedly attacked efforts by local officials to mail applications to vote-by-mail to voters, but continues to send applications to do just that to their voters. Patrick’s mail includes use of his official state seal despite his objections to local government officials sending applications.
Texas Democratic Candidate for Lt. Governor Mike Collier issued the following statement:
“Last time I checked, you don’t get to cut and paste the law, and the Secretary of State appears to be doing just that for Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.
“The people of Texas deserve to know whether the Texas Secretary of State changed the rules for Dan Patrick and whether other applications—not solicited by Dan Patrick—were rejected prior to the rule change. It seems that rules are always being redesigned to make it more difficult for voters in the state’s largest counties but ignored when it favors the Texas GOP.
“To restore transparency to the office, Secretary of State John B. Scott must release all information relating to ballot applications received by his office in 2022 with a listing of how many were rejected and how many were forwarded to county elections officials around the state.”
Mike Collier is a lifelong businessman and energy expert from Houston, Texas. In 2018, he ran the closest race for Lt. Governor in twenty years against Dan Patrick, outperforming the rest of the Democratic ticket in two thirds of Texas counties.