It took a doctor’s note and mad dash to Sonic for this coronavirus sufferer to cast her ballot. Linda Harrison and her husband couldn’t go to the polls because they were recently diagnosed with COVID-19. A state judge rebuffed their request for help obtaining absentee ballots, so she scrambled and still managed to vote.
Seeking to vote in Tuesday’s primary runoff election, two Austin residents who recently tested positive for the new coronavirus asked a state district judge Tuesday afternoon to allow them to get around a state rule requiring a doctor’s signature for emergency mail-in ballots.
In a lawsuit filed in state district court in Travis County, Linda Elizabeth Harrison and her husband, Vernon Webb, argue that the state’s criteria for applying for an emergency ballot to fill out at home is unconstitutional and imposes an undue burden on the right to vote. Unlike applications received before the deadline to vote by mail, voters submitting applications for emergency ballots must submit certification from a doctor that the voter has developed an illness that would keep them from being able to vote in person.
The application cutoff for voters seeking to vote by mail in the runoff was July 2.
That’s the same day Harrison learned she had tested positive for the virus. Her husband was tested soon after and learned his results July 9. They are both under medical orders to self-quarantine and have been experiencing respiratory issues and fatigue — both symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.