Harris County Clerk plans to work around slow USPS in run-up to Election Day
Harris County Clerk talks mail-in ballots amid USPS controversy
FOX 26 Reporter Ivory Hecker speaks with Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins about the controversy surrounding the 2020 Presidential election and mail-in voting.
HARRIS COUNTY - The Harris County Clerk is laying out more details on his mail-in ballot plan for the November election and how he plans to work around a potentially slow US Postal Service.
Many people have been experiencing mail delays since the COVID-19 pandemic began. A USPS spokesperson told FOX 26, “The Postal Service is in a financially unsustainable position, stemming from substantial declines in mail volume, and a broken business model.”
RELATED: Top US election officials say mail-in voting doesn’t lead to widespread voter fraud
Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins says if you planned to vote by mail but are worried about your ballot arriving on time for Election Day, you can drop off that ballot at one of the clerk’s eleven offices and annexes.
“If you’re uncomfortable with the mail system, you can come to any one of our locations across Harris County and drop your ballot off to us,” said Hollins.
Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins took FOX 26 inside the Chimney Rock Annex, one of eleven locations where voters who have obtained mail-in ballots can drop off those ballots in person beginning when they receive their ballots and running through Election Day.
RELATED: USPS warns 46 states, DC about election mail delays that could affect whether ballots get counted
“If you bring it in in person, you will have your ID checked,” said Hollins. “You will still need to bring it in in the envelopes that ballot comes with, but you won’t need to put a stamp on it. You will hand it to us, and we’ll make sure that your vote gets counted.”
The chairman of the Harris County Republican Party Ballot Security Committee Alan Vera says he believes Hollins’ plan violates Texas state law.
“The code itself—it’s Section 86.006 a-1—says ‘The voter may deliver a marked ballot in person to the early voting clerk's office only while the polls are open on Election Day,”’ said Vera.
Meanwhile, the Texas Democratic Party is in the middle of its plan to send out more mail-in ballot applications to its constituents than ever before.
“It’s 1.7 million vote-by-mail applications by the end of August, so it’s about double the amount we’ve ever done before,” said Abhi Rahman, spokesman for the Texas Democratic Party. “It’s pretty historic. It’s something new, and we think it’s going to be huge for us. We think it’s going to be the difference between winning and losing.”
The Republican Party of Texas has not yet responded to Fox 26’s questions about its vote-by-mail plan of attack.
On Monday President Trump told the cable network FOX News the USPS is “one of the disasters of the world.”
“The president has stated that he is going to sabotage the United States Postal Service, and so in order to guard from that, first of all we’re working with our members of Congress,” said Hollins. “Second of all we’re in direct conversations with our local postmaster.”
Hollins says if you do have a mail-in ballot and do choose to mail it rather than dropping it off at an annex, it will have to be postmarked by 7 p.m. on Election Day, and the clerk will have to receive it by 5 p.m. the following day.
Hollins says he’s continuing to work with a panel of medical experts to get more information out to voters next week about whether those with underlying health conditions can vote by mail given the current coronavirus pandemic.