So Emma, did you know you were going to be like the chief lawsuit correspondent for the Texas Supreme?

I actually, I typically do cover the courts, but they are not always as busy as they are.

Now, I actually have already written two stories about rulings from the Texas Supreme Court this morning, and it's barely 10 a.m.

Emma Platoff covers politics for the Texas Tribune. And right now, in an election year, that means lawsuits.

She's tracking litigation about who can be sent ballot applications by mail, litigation about how early people can vote.

This legal dance is not entirely unexpected, but the pandemic has supercharged it.

For now, who can vote and how. It's a pretty local decision and subject to change.

In Houston, the county clerk is setting up drive-through voting, 24-hour poll locations.

In more rural counties, you'll be lucky if your poll worker is wearing a mask.

What's the role your governor has played in all of these decisions around voting?

The biggest step Governor Greg Abbott has taken on voting was to extend the early voting period.

He extended it by six days.

So we're actually set to start early voting in just over a week here in Texas on October 13th.

And the other thing that he allowed for was permitting voters to drop off their absentee ballots in person a little bit earlier than usual.

That sounds good. Like it's expanding who can vote, right?

It certainly is expanding options for voters. And the Democratic groups and the voting rights advocates that I talk to say, this is a

great step. We applaud the governor for it. So has he been consistent in expanding access to the polls?

There have been some shifts from his administration. The shifts Emma is talking about here. They've been dramatic.

Voting rights groups are suing Governor Greg Abbott after his announcement yesterday, limiting mail-in-valid drop-off locations to just one location per county.

Last week, the governor of Texas moved suddenly to shut down more than a dozen ballot collection sites.

Today is the first day of mail ballot drop-off, and the best word to describe the situation here is outrage.

Every single voter that I spoke with is against the governor's limitation, and so is the Harris County Clerk.

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