Ray v. Texas

Texas Election Code § 84.004 allowed early voting by mail or in person in certain circumstances, including when the voter has a disability that prevents the individual from appearing at a polling place on election day or if the voter is 65 years old or older on election day. To participate in early voting, a voter applied for an early voting ballot, and the application required a signature. If an individual could not sign the early voting application due to disability or illiteracy, another person signed as a witness. Under Texas Election Code § 84.004, an individual signing an application as a witness for more than one early voting application was a criminal-misdemeanor offense, unless an exception applied. Willie Ray (plaintiff) and others sued the state of Texas (defendant), challenging multiple aspects of the Texas Election Code as violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. After the code was amended by the Texas legislature and because of pretrial efforts, only one dispute remained for trial. The issue at trial was the constitutionality of Texas’s scheme to charge individuals signing as witness to more than one early voting application with a criminal misdemeanor. Ray and Texas each submitted motions for summary judgment. Ray argued that the criminal scheme decreases the number of people willing to volunteer to assist the elderly or disabled in obtaining absentee ballots, disenfranchising elderly and disabled voters. Texas argued that the prohibition on signing more than one absentee ballot was justified by the state’s interest in preventing election fraud.