Early voting for the November 7 Joint General & Special Elections begins Monday, October 23, and ends Friday, November 3. A total of 68 voting centers will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day, except for Sunday, October 29, noon to 7 p.m.
“There are 14 state constitutional amendments and the Harris County Hospital District proposition,” said Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth. “Only voters who live within the City of Houston’s legal boundaries are eligible to vote in the Houston Mayoral and City Council races.”
For a sample ballot, click here. Enter the name, address, or Voter Unique Identifier (VUID) on your voter registration certificate to view all the contests and candidates. Sample ballots are unique to an individual’s address. Voters are encouraged to review or print their sample ballot before heading to the polls. Voters can take their printed sample ballot into the voting booth for reference.
“Voters are encouraged to vote during one of the 12 days afforded by the early voting period and not wait until Election Day,” added Clerk Hudspeth. “As usual, voters can vote at any one of the available Early Voting Centers in Harris County, near home, work, school, or wherever is most convenient.”
The following forms of photo ID are acceptable when voting in person:
- Texas Driver’s License issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS)
- Texas Election Identification Certificate issued by DPS
- Texas Personal Identification Card issued by DPS
- Texas Handgun License issued by DPS
- United States Military Identification Card containing the person’s photograph
- United States Citizenship Certificate containing the person’s photograph
- United States Passport (book or card)
Voters who do not possess and cannot obtain one of these forms of photo ID may fill out a Reasonable Impediment Declaration (RID) at a Vote Center and present another form of ID, such as a utility bill, bank statement, government check, or voter registration certificate.
The deadline to request a ballot by mail for the November 7 election is Friday, October 27 (received, not postmarked). To be eligible to vote early by mail in Texas, you must:
- be 65 years or older
- be sick or disabled
- be out of the county on election day and during the period for early voting by personal appearance
- be expected to give birth within three weeks before or after Election Day
- be confined in jail but otherwise eligible.
Additional election information is available at www.HarrisVotes.com. For news and updates, follow us on social media at @HarrisCoTxClerk and @HarrisVotes.
Vote early, that’s my advice. Listen to my interviews if you want to know more about the candidates. The Erik Manning spreadsheet will tell you who’s been endorsed by whom. Progress Texas has a good list of endorsements on the statewide propositions.
And Houston Landing has a few words with County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth.
With early voting set to begin next week, Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth on Friday said the county has made adjustments to ensure a smooth election process, including hiring more workers and stocking polling locations with more paper.
The Nov. 7 election will be the first since the state enacted a law that eliminated Harris County’s election administrator position, returning the responsibility of maintaining voter registration rolls and conducting elections to the county tax assessor-collector and county clerk offices. The two offices previously handled election duties before Commissioners Court established the elections administration office in June 2021.
Hudspeth’s remarks came one day after the Texas secretary of state’s office issued a preliminary audit report that found Harris County had “multiple failures” while running the 2022 election that may have prevented people from voting. The office has not yet said when it will release an official report.
The report, which stopped short of saying that election outcomes may have been affected, said that election judge training was insufficient and that several voting locations ran out of ballot paper.
[…]
Hudspeth said she is confident she is prepared for the election and implemented as many adjustments that were possible within the limited time frame. Those adjustments also align with some of the audit findings.
Hudspeth said one of the first things she did after gaining control of elections was meet with the secretary of state and ask for feedback on how things were run. She said the two have been in “continuous communication” and that she revamped some processes, including election training, based upon the state’s assessment.
Instead of 70 election trainings, the county now will offer 120, Hudspeth said, and each polling location will be stocked with twice the amount of paper as last year.
She also said her office will have additional workers to address technical difficulties at polling places, on top of more than 140 extra people at the NRG Arena counting center that can be deployed to voting locations if needed
“I cannot answer for November 2022 because I did not run that election,” Hudspeth said. “What I can say is that this is a big county. It’s the third largest county in the nation. And there is no such thing as a flawless election, but I can guarantee you that in all my years of working elections, we have conducted successful elections that follow state and federal guidelines.”
I covered most of the non-audit ground in my interview with Teneshia Hudspeth, which you should listen to. We’re all rooting for a smooth election. I’ll bring you the daily EV vote totals. I’ll put up a review of the last two city elections tomorrow.
I don’t believe Teneshia one bit.
I’ve already received a mailer from the Harris County GOP stating that the 2023 election was already stolen. And you know that Republicans don’t lie about election security.
Monday is the only day out of 60 that the city said they were available for collective bargaining with fire fighters. The people of Houston paid $500,000 for a potential one day of representation in the collective bargaining process and a legal team that showed up to court and admitted to the judge they were unprepared. This, after 10+ years of statements of how Turner supports collective bargaining, but stretches out the time, for himself, and making it more expensive for Houston, and more frustrating for fire fighters. So, remind me how fire fighters are the problem here and how the city is not making one bigger.
Running elections should be the duties of a person voted into office, held accountable TO the voters. The Harris County commissioners were wrong to create a b.s. position (because Harris county residents were “too confused”) by having two separate elected officials connected with the process). Chris Hollins should never have had contact with our system of voting in Harris county. Whether one is a republican or democrat or socialist – the last election was a joke. Houston is sinking further into the quagmire of shenanigans and graft as a result. I will love Houston until the day I die and hug all the people within it. But our politics and policies stink.
Whitmire has Carol Alvarado supporting him, but has anyone asked her if he wins, she will not accept a penny from contracts direct or in direct. Lot’s of buzz why she is supporting him, but the community is saying Senators don’t make a lot and she earns her money as a lobbyist which is why she has turned her back on the Latino community.
Houston Landing has done stories re: the Mayoral race, but the unasked question was: 1) Who are you supporting; and 2) Have you received a payment from a Mayoral candidate. Marc Campos, Robert Jara and Carol Alvarado are all on Whitmire’s payroll or supporting him. I know they are a new organization, but are thier journalists that new?!