Fifth Circuit Reverses Injunction Against Nine S.B. 1 Provisions Challenged Under Federal Disability Laws

The decision

On August 12, 2026, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed a permanent injunction against nine provisions of Senate Bill 1, the Texas election law enacted in 2021. After a bench trial, the district court had held that the provisions were inconsistent with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

The panel held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring most of their claims. On the one claim for which the court found standing, a challenge to the law’s compensation provisions brought against local prosecutors, the court held that the claim failed on the merits. The opinion concludes: “The district court’s decision awarding permanent injunctive relief is REVERSED in its entirety.”

Background

S.B. 1, the Election Protection and Integrity Act of 2021, changed a range of voting procedures. The opinion describes the provisions at issue in three groups:

• Identification provisions require voters who vote by mail to provide an identification number or Social Security number that matches the State’s records.
• Voter-assistance provisions require a person assisting a voter to sign an oath that they did not coerce or intimidate the voter, state their relationship to the voter, and disclose whether they received compensation from a candidate, campaign or political committee.
• Compensation provisions restrict compensation for certain electioneering activities.

The plaintiffs are three groups of organizations that, according to the opinion, filed suit before S.B. 1 was enacted. They are The Arc of Texas and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority; REV UP Texas; and La Unión del Pueblo Entero, the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, Texas Impact, Jolt Action, MABA Texas and FIEL Houston. They claimed that the provisions violate Title II of the ADA and Section 504, which, as the opinion describes them, allow disabled persons to sue public entities for discrimination.

In findings of fact and conclusions of law signed March 14, 2025, Judge Xavier Rodriguez of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas concluded that Sections 5.02, 5.03, 5.07, 6.06 and 7.04 of S.B. 1, and portions of Sections 6.03, 6.04, 6.05 and 6.07, violate the ADA and Section 504. According to the Fifth Circuit, the district court permanently enjoined the Texas Secretary of State and various local officials from enforcing the nine provisions. The defendants appealed.

The opinion opens by stating that “[i]t has long been established that mail-in ballots are prone to fraud.” It then lists earlier appeals in the same consolidated litigation in which the Fifth Circuit stayed or reversed injunctions against S.B. 1 provisions. These include a 2025 decision reversing an injunction under Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, in which the U.S. Supreme Court denied review on June 29, 2026.

The court’s reasoning

The opinion, by Judge Andrew S. Oldham, took up the identification provisions, the voter-assistance provisions and the compensation provisions in turn.

Identification provisions: no standing

The court stated that “[t]he plaintiffs’ challenge to the identification provisions of S.B. 1 fails for lack of standing.” An organization may establish standing by suing on behalf of its members (associational standing) or in its own right (organizational standing). The court held that the plaintiffs established neither.

Associational standing. An organization seeking an injunction on behalf of its members must identify a specific member who faces a “substantial risk” of future injury. The district court had found one member injured by the identification provisions, a voter whose applications to vote by mail in 2022 were rejected for lack of an identification number. The panel concluded that “[t]he record does not support a ‘substantial risk’ that [she] will suffer future injury,” noting her testimony that she had since learned more about the requirements and was “better able” to apply successfully. The court concluded that other members identified by the plaintiffs, whose ballots or applications had been rejected in 2022, also had not shown a substantial risk of future injury.

The district court had also relied on testimony from local election officials that elderly voters, voters with disabilities and newly eligible mail voters would continue to have ballots rejected. The panel pointed instead to evidence that rejections caused by missing or mismatched identification numbers “dropped from 11 or 12 percent to 2.7 percent in just eight months,” and to officials’ testimony that the numbers would continue to decline.

Organizational standing. The plaintiffs argued that the identification provisions forced them to divert resources to voter education. The court held that argument foreclosed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which, the panel stated, held that an organization’s diversion of resources in response to a defendant’s action cannot confer standing.

Voter-assistance provisions: no standing

The court held that its 2025 decision in the Voting Rights Act appeal controlled. It stated: “This court has already rejected the exact same standing arguments from the exact same plaintiffs on the exact same record.” The plaintiffs argued that the earlier decision was distinguishable because the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act protect broader rights than the Voting Rights Act. The court rejected that argument, stating that the earlier decision rested on the plaintiffs’ choice not to volunteer based on what that court called a “non-existent threat of prosecution,” a reason that did not depend on the statute sued under.

Compensation provisions: no standing against state and election officials; claim against prosecutors fails on the merits

The court held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the compensation provisions against local election officials, the Attorney General or the Secretary of State, because their asserted injuries were not traceable to those officials:

• Local prosecutors, not local election officials, enforce the Election Code’s criminal prohibitions.
• The Attorney General cannot compel local officials to enforce the provisions or prosecute election-law violations on his own.
• The Secretary of State is not empowered to bring criminal or civil prosecutions under the provisions. The court stated that the Secretary’s ability to refer suspected violations to the Attorney General, who also cannot prosecute them, is not enforcement. The court rejected the plaintiffs’ reliance on the Secretary’s role as the State’s chief election officer.

As to local prosecutors, the court stated that it was bound by its 2025 decision to hold that the plaintiffs had standing, and it reached the merits. A claim under Title II or Section 504 requires showing that the defendant excluded the plaintiff from services or benefits the defendant provides, by reason of disability. The court acknowledged that district attorneys prosecute election-law violations, but stated: “But no part of the district attorneys’ role is to supervise the administration or provision of voting services to disabled voters.” Because the plaintiffs could not make a prima facie case of disability discrimination against any remaining defendant, the claim failed.

Separate opinions

None. Judges Higginbotham and Smith joined the panel opinion without writing separately.

Status

The court reversed the district court’s permanent injunction in its entirety. The opinion does not include instructions for further proceedings in the district court.

For the identification and voter-assistance provisions, and for the compensation-provision claims against state and local election officials, the court resolved the appeal on standing. It did not decide whether those provisions comply with the ADA or Section 504. The only merits ruling concerns the compensation provisions as applied to local prosecutors.