The Texas Democratic Party and three under-65 voters filed motions to the U.S. Supreme Court today, requesting allowing vote by mail to all Texas voters. One plaintiff called the age restriction “arbitrary, discriminatory, and unconstitutional.”

Attorney Chad Dunn, general counsel for the TDP, said (via an online press conference) that the filings ask Justice Samuel Alito (presiding over the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals) to lift the current stay of a lower court order allowing VBM under pandemic conditions to all Texas voters. Failing that action, Dunn said, the Court has been asked to consider the constitutional merits of the plaintiffs’ suit: that the 26th Amendment prohibits discrimination against voters on the basis of age.

For more on the legal actions concerning voting by mail in Texas, see “How Are We Going to Vote?,” June 12. For more on the latest developments, follow the Daily News and this week’s print edition.

This article appears in June 12 • 2020.

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Contributing writer and former news editor Michael King has reported on city and state politics for the Chronicle since 2000. He was educated at Indiana University and Yale, and from 1977 to 1985 taught at UT-Austin. He has been the editor of the Houston Press and The Texas Observer, and has reported and written widely on education, politics, and cultural subjects.