Parents from across the U.S. are responding to the news that Texas schools are sending children home with DNA kits in order to have their identification on hand in case of crisis situations or emergencies.

The kits allow parents to take, store and control their children's fingerprints and DNA in their own home, said the National Child Identification Program website, as Fox News Digital reported on Wednesday.

While the kits are a "voluntary identification card" to be kept by a child’s guardian in order to help law enforcement potentially find missing children, parents are tense — especially in the wake of the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in May of this year.

TEXAS STUDENTS TAKING DNA, FINGERPRINT KITS TO IDENTIFY THEM IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

"While this is helpful in the event of a child going missing, at the same time, my heart sinks," a Massachusetts public school administrator told Fox News Digital this week about the DNA program. 

"Seeing that it is [in the state of] Texas, where [the] Uvalde [school shooting] happened — it makes you wonder about the true purpose of these kits," the individual also said.

A mother of four in New York weighed in, saying, "DNA kits in schools to identify children's bodies? This is just too much."

She added, "I find this troubling and do not feel the schools are the place for this material. What message are we sending families and children if this becomes the norm?"

She said that "instead of this, we must take action to keep our schools safer — and all community members should be on board with stronger protections for kids in the schools."

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The mother also said, "They are our precious children — and they deserve the best protection and care that we are capable of giving."

An Arizona mother and grandmother said that the kits "are probably coming to Arizona next."

She added, "This is a harbinger of where society is going. Even if the kits are for trafficked children, that tells us society needs help — quick. With a granddaughter in public schools, I pray all the time for her safety and for the safety of all the kids in her school."

A veteran, father and grandfather from the Northeast said he "finds this yet another example of stunning government overreach."

He said, "Who's going to have access to this DNA information? How is it going to be used? How is it going to be stored — or shared? And have we really thrown in the towel on our children this way?" 

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He added that he "mistrusts" this decision and would want to learn a lot more about it before he would ever be OK with something like this for America's schools.

A person writing online and reacting to the news about the DNA kits said, "Don't get why people are freaked out about this. The data stays at home, not [at] a school or [in a] federal database. I would have a problem if it was the latter."

A mother of two young adults in the Boston area said that when "kids reliably become the victims in a society, that society is failing." 

She added, "Let’s face it – every parent’s blood turns cold when a DNA kit is mentioned."

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Another mom of five from the Boston area added, "Even Uvalde couldn’t change society. What is it going to take to make us a safer, more compassionate nation?"

A mother and grandmother in the Baltimore area said simply, "Prayer and more prayer — may God help us when we get to this point, feeling we need to send kids home with DNA kits."

One person wrote, "There's a lot more information that can come from DNA samples. I think this is a sneaky way for the liberal government to get more hands in the cookie jar."

Yet another person commented, "What a waste of taxpayers' hard-earned money."

Still another person wrote this: "Fifteen years ago, if you had said that this is what public school has come to, people would not believe it or tolerate it. Between the ongoing indoctrinations, the gender identity farce, the lack of any discipline, drag shows [and] pornographic books, there is no way ANY of this would have been tolerated."

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The commenter added, "But because this stuff has been slow-rolled, society and parents are becoming almost numb to this insanity and actually tolerating it. It's all part of the agenda, folks. Stay alert, please. Do not go numb. The madness can be stopped."

The individual also said, "Hold our politicians, from top to bottom, accountable — [and] local Board of Ed candidates equally so. Do not be silenced. Speak up. Make your voice heard. Otherwise, silence is compliance."

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Distribution by the state is going through the Texas Education Agency. Close to 4 million students are expected to take the kits home.

However, according to the National Child Identification Program website, nearly the same number of students received the ID kits across the Lone Star State in the fall of 2000 — and the kits were also distributed in 2006-07. 

Pilar Arias of Fox News Digital contributed reporting.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a motion on Wednesday that urges election officials in Pennsylvania to count mail-in ballots missing a handwritten date on the envelope.

The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had previously ruled that mail-in ballots without the required date on the return envelope should be counted. However, after the Supreme Court vacated the decision, acting Pennsylvania Secretary of State Leigh Chapman issued a statement claiming that the opinion was “not based on the merits of the issue and does not affect the prior decision.”

The ACLU is therefore seeking to intervene in Ball v. Chapman, a lawsuit pushing for election officials to refrain from counting ballots without a date on the envelope, and contends that thousands of voters’ disenfranchisement is at stake.

​​“Throwing out valid votes because of a minor paperwork error is undemocratic, illegal, and smacks of desperation,” ACLU attorney Ari Savitzky said in a statement. “This effort threatens thousands of Pennsylvanians, most of them senior citizens and longtime voters, with disenfranchisement. Under Pennsylvania state law and federal law, a ballot cannot be tossed if a voter simply forgets to handwrite an inconsequential date on the outer return envelope. These votes must be counted.”

The motion, backed by voting rights groups such as the NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference and the Black Political Empowerment Project, argues that any new restrictions would unduly interrupt the midterm election cycle.

“Election officials know when ballots are sent to voters and when they are received,” League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania Executive Director Meghan Pierce added. “A voter adding a handwritten date to their return envelope does not add a verification of any sort. This latest attempt to disenfranchise voters for the simple mistake of not dating their return envelopes attempts to undo the progress Pennsylvania has made in making elections more accessible.”

Strife over the commonwealth’s laws regarding undated mail-in ballot envelopes emerged between Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick, who competed to secure the Republican nomination for the Pennsylvania Senate race earlier this year. The Oz campaign blamed McCormick for “following the Democrats’ playbook” and eroding voter confidence in the election by pressing officials to count the disqualified ballots. Voters will choose between Oz and Pennsylvania Lt. Governor John Fetterman, a Democrat, next month.

The Republican National Committee, which joins plaintiff David Ball in the lawsuit, argues that returning a mail-in ballot with an undated envelope violates state law. The group asserts that the Supreme Court’s opinion made sufficiently clear that such votes should not be counted and said that Chapman was wrongly usurping the high court in her attempt to disregard the ruling.

“Republicans are holding Pennsylvania Democrats accountable for their brazen defiance of the Supreme Court and the rules duly set by the legislature,” state and national Republican officials said in a statement. “Pennsylvania Democrats have a history of election integrity failures and Pennsylvanians deserve better: this lawsuit is the latest step in Republican efforts to promote free, fair, and transparent elections in the Keystone State.”

The Senate race between Oz and Fetterman is among the most competitive in the country and could help Democrats retain control of the upper chamber. According to a recent survey from Emerson College and The Hill, the former candidate is supported by 43% of the voting population, while the latter is supported by 45%.