Alexa Ura for Texas Tribune:

Barely started down the path toward the first elections conducted under voting restrictions enacted last year by Republican lawmakers, Texas voters and local election officials have found themselves enveloped in a fog of errors, delays and miscommunications as they navigate new rules for casting votes by mail.

Only a small slice of the state’s electorate is allowed to cast absentee ballots, and the trickle of requests for mail-in ballots that began in early January is now swelling into the usual pre-election flood.

But hundreds of applications are being rejected — in many cases because voters appear to not know the new rules. Local election workers themselves are still deciphering the procedures, and say they’ve been hampered by a paucity of help and information from the Texas secretary of state’s office. Meanwhile, the state is scrambling to provide training under the crush of advising counties on implementing a multitude of election changes.