Supreme Court Leaves Texas Paid Voter Assistance Ban in Place

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge to Texas’s ban on paid voter assistance, leaving in place an appeals court ruling that allows the state to enforce the restriction.

The dispute centered on a provision of Texas Senate Bill 1, the state’s 2021 election law. The provision makes it a felony to pay someone, or receive payment, for helping a voter complete or submit a mail ballot.

La Unión del Pueblo Entero, known as LUPE, and other voting rights groups challenged the restriction after the law was enacted. The groups claimed the ban conflicts with federal law and makes it harder for some voters to use mail ballots, particularly voters with disabilities, voters with limited English skills, and voters who rely on trained community workers for assistance.

LUPE also argued that the law forced the organization to turn away members who asked for help completing mail ballots because the group feared possible prosecution under the Texas statute.

The groups relied in part on Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, a federal law that protects voters who need help because of blindness, disability, or inability to read or write. Section 208 allows those voters to receive assistance from a person of their choice, with exceptions for certain people such as an employer, supervisor, or union officer.

The voting rights groups argued that Texas’s paid assistance ban narrows a right Congress already gave voters by making it unlawful for them to turn to trained staff or community workers who are compensated for helping. Texas argued that Section 208 protects who may assist a voter, but does not stop states from regulating whether that assistance may be paid.

A federal judge in the Western District of Texas initially sided with the voting rights groups and found that the paid assistance ban was preempted by the Voting Rights Act. Preemption means a state rule cannot be enforced when it conflicts with federal law.

The Texas attorney general’s office argued there was no conflict because the federal law gives certain voters a choice of helper, but does not create a right to paid assistance. Texas defended the law as part of the state’s authority to regulate elections and argued that Congress did not strip states of the power to regulate the financial conditions surrounding mail ballot assistance when it enacted Section 208.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later reversed the district court and upheld the Texas restriction. The Supreme Court’s refusal to take the case leaves that appeals court ruling in place without a ruling from the justices on the merits of the Section 208 dispute.

A federal district court had also found the ban violated disability rights laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. After the Supreme Court’s denial, the controlling ruling is the 5th Circuit’s approval of Texas’s paid assistance restriction.