Topline Texas Governor Greg Abbott is sharply restricting where voters can drop off their mail-in ballots and requiring counties to allow poll watchers at their dropoff sites, issuing an executive order Thursday that closely echoes President Trump’s harsh — and frequently exaggerated — concerns about election security. Texas Governor Greg Abbott announces the reopening of more Texas businesses during the COVID-19 … [+] pandemic at a press conference at the Texas State Capitol on May 18, 2020 in Austin, Texas. Getty Images Key Facts Each Texas county can only accept mail-in ballots before Election Day at a single centralized office, the governor said. Some larger counties have designated multiple sites where voters could hand in their ballots: Harris County, which is home to Houston, allowed voters to choose between a dozen auxiliary dropoff sites. A Washington Post analysis found that this change will make dropoff sites especially hard to access in predominantly nonwhite and Democratic counties, which tend to be both more populous and geographically larger than the state’s whiter, more conservative counties. The governor’s order also says poll watchers are allowed to observe each county’s dropoff location, just days after Trump encouraged his supporters to act as poll watchers, a move that drew steep criticism because the… Click below to read the full story from Forbes
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