Power Grab/Fire anyone who can stop him
The Fifth Circuit restores 9 Texas voting provisions and calls mail ballots “prone to fraud”
A panel reversed in its entirety the March 2025 permanent injunction against nine provisions of Texas Senate Bill 1.
What happened
On August 12, 2026, a Fifth Circuit panel reversed in its entirety Judge Xavier Rodriguez’s March 2025 permanent injunction against 9 provisions of Texas Senate Bill 1. Judges Higginbotham, Smith and Oldham decided La Union del Pueblo Entero v. Abbott, No. 25-50246.
The district court had found the mail-ballot identification, cure and voter-assistance provisions violated the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act. The panel held the plaintiffs lacked standing on the identification and assistance provisions and on most compensation-provision defendants, and lost on the merits against local prosecutors.
Judge Oldham’s 11-page opinion opened by asserting that mail-in ballots are “prone to fraud” and that voting by mail “jeopardizes election integrity and democracy itself.” Oldham wrote the opinion for a panel that included Judges Higginbotham and Smith, and it reversed the March 2025 injunction in its entirety.
Who benefited
Texas officials get nine provisions of Senate Bill 1 back in force, including the mail-ballot identification, cure and voter-assistance rules. The permanent injunction against them is gone. The permanent injunction entered by Judge Xavier Rodriguez in March 2025 against those nine provisions is gone, reversed in its entirety on August 12, 2026.
Who wanted something
Texas, as the defendant, wanted the injunction against Senate Bill 1 lifted, and the panel’s opinion adopts the premise that mail ballots are prone to fraud. The panel reversed the district court in its entirety.
Who lost out
Voters who needed mail-ballot assistance or a chance to cure their ballots lose the protection of the March 2025 injunction. The district court had found those provisions violated the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act. The district court had found those provisions violated the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act, and the panel set that finding aside on standing and on the merits.
Why it matters
A federal appeals court opened its opinion by saying that voting by mail “jeopardizes election integrity and democracy itself.” The panel’s holding was largely that the plaintiffs could not sue, on standing, and the March 2025 injunction fell with it.
Sources U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (primary)Texas TribuneTexas Appeals Journal