World War II veteran Kenneth Thompson, from Texas, says he fears new voting laws may prevent him from voting by absentee ballot for the first time in his lifetime because of the new voting law recently implemented in the state.
The 95-year-old Harris County resident has been checking his mail daily in hopes his mail-in ballot is among the pile, he told local station KPRC2-Houston.
Thompson said he has been voting since he was 21-years-old, and he even recalls paying a $0.25 poll tax in the 1950′s. “I’ve been voting many, many years and I’ve never missed a vote,” Thompson told the station.
The vet, who served in the U.S. Army in WWII during the European Theater for the right to vote and other freedoms, said he considers voting a duty.
Don't Miss
Now, the vet fears Texas’ new election law, SB1, could prevent him from voting for the first time in his life.
“There’s gonna be a lot of people not gonna vote. If I hadn’t have called in about mine, people wouldn’t have known,” Thompson said. “I can get out and move around and go to a regular polling place, but these people, lots of people just can’t,” he added, according to the station.
Under the new law, Thompson must either provide part of his social security number or his driver’s license number that matches his registration record with the county or state. Since Holland can’t meet the new requirement, his mail-in ballot application was denied twice. The veteran said Harris County election officials never notified him and he had to call to find out both times.
“He registered to vote in the 1940′s and they didn’t require that,” said Thompson’s daughter, Delinda Holland, who pointed out that she’s even tried contacting the county and state Secretary of State’s Office to add her dad’s license number to his registration file online and discovered there’s not actually a way to have that done.
“He’s a law-abiding citizen. He doesn’t want to miss voting, and yet, there’s no mechanism to add that driver’s license to your record,” Holland said.
