Hundreds of mail-in ballots pending in Cameron and Hidalgo County
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Elections departments in two Valley counties are reaching out to people who voted by mail because their ballots may need corrections.
In Cameron County, 38 ballots are pending.
"The actual number that it was overall might have been a little more, but a lot of those voters responded quickly and got us back their carrier envelopes," said Cameron County Elections Administrator Remi Garza.
The rejected ballots and applications were due to a change in Texas law that went into effect at the beginning of the year. A portion of the law added identification requirements for voting by mail.
Garza said that some of the ballots were returned with either missing or incorrect voter identification numbers.
"We were really concerned because we knew we were going to have new voters that were voting by mail because not everybody participates in the primaries," Garza said.
In the March primaries, more than 130 were rejected — a record number Cameron County. Garza says now that more people are familiar with the process, fewer ballots need corrections.
“We're going to do everything we can to help the voters get their vote to be counted,” Garza said.
In Hidalgo County, the elections department said more than 900 mail-in ballots have not been returned or are currently pending.
According to county interim elections administrator Hilda Salinas, it is unclear how many of those mail-in ballots need to be corrected.
“It could be ballots that were missing something, and they're giving them an opportunity to come in and cure,” Salinas said. “Or they're pending in general because they haven't mailed the ballot back.”
In March, more than 500 mail-in ballots were rejected in Hidalgo County.
The Early Voting Ballot Board for both departments will review the pending ballots to see which ballots were accepted or not.
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