The voices of 125 Smith County voters weren’t heard in the March primaries, and that’s 125 too many.

Those 125 mail-in ballots were rejected because of missing ID information required by the state’s new election law, Senate Bill 1, which kicked in this year after the Legislature passed it in 2021.

Michelle Allcon, the county’s elections administrator, warned us before early voting in the primaries began that her office had rejected mail-in ballot applications that weren’t properly filled out.

The problem? The new law mandates an identification number on voters’ mail-in ballot application and on the mail-in ballot itself. That number can be from a driver’s license, state ID or Social Security card. But if the number isn’t provided — or it doesn’t match what is in the voter registration system — the application or ballot is rejected.

That means mail-in voters face more than one possible pitfall. (Election officials suggest residents provide two ID numbers in case one doesn’t match.)

Allcon provided a final tally this past week of mail-in ballots declined by her office in March. That tally included 62 rejected Republican ballots — or 9.6% of the total — and 63 Democratic ballots — or 8.4%.

Ballots mostly were rejected because of a missing identification number, Allcon said. However, one ballot was rejected for not having a signature, while another because the voter returned it with “I do not want this ballot” written across it, she said.

Those 125 total Gregg County residents who didn’t have their votes counted in the primaries accounted for about 9% of the total ballots. A silver lining: That percentage was lower than the 12.4% of mail-in ballots not counted across the state.

So what now? Officials statewide and locally must do everything they can to make sure voters are informed of the law’s requirements.

We would urge our local Republican and Democratic parties to formulate a plan to get the word out about the law. That could include information at voter registration drives, through social media and at candidate forums.

Regardless of where you stand on SB 1 — whether you believe the goal is to make it harder for certain Texans to vote or to make elections more secure — the law isn’t going away.

And although it’s likely voters will, over time, learn to properly follow the law’s requirements, even one ballot tossed out because of missing information shouldn’t be acceptable.

The next opportunity to cast a mail-in ballot is fast approaching.

The deadline to submit a mail-in ballot application for the May 7 city and school elections is April 26. And the deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot for the May 24 primary runoffs is May 13.

For information about voting by mail-in ballot in Smith County, go to smith-county.com/government/departments/elections/voting-by-mail .