[Today] is Election Day for the City of Houston Special Election to fill the vacant District C City Council seat. The elected candidate will serve the remainder of former Council Member Abbie Kamin’s term through January 1, 2028.
District C includes portions of the Heights, Washington Avenue, Montrose, Rice Village, and Meyerland.
“Only 3.8% of District C’s 168,539 registered voters cast their ballots during the early voting period,” said Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth. “We strongly encourage every eligible voter to participate on Election Day, so their voices are fully represented.”
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Voters can vote at any of the 20 vote centers open on Election Day. A full list of locations and estimated wait times is available at Harrisvotes.com.
Acceptable Photo Identification
- TX Driver’s License (DPS)
- TX Election Identification Certificate (DPS)
- TX Personal Identification Card (DPS)
- TX Handgun License (DPS)
- U.S. Military ID with photo
- U.S. Citizenship Certificate with photo
- U.S. Passport (book or card)
Voting by Mail
Eligible voters include:
- Individuals 65 or older
- Voters who are sick or have a disability
- Voters who will be outside the county during the voting period
- Voters expecting to give birth within three weeks before or after Election Day
- Voters confined in jail but otherwise eligible to vote
For a sample ballot, vote center locations, and additional election information, visit HarrisVotes.com. Follow @HarrisVotes on social media for updates.
There are 20 vote centers for the election, and you can find them here. I doubt you will find much of a line at any of them. Turnout is fine, I do think we’ll get to seven percent, which as noted is a top performance in this kind of election. It is what it is.
Two things to note. One, while the press release cited here is about the April 4 special election, if you look at the URL it is referencing the May 2 uniform election. We don’t normally have much in the way of even-year May elections; this is not counting the primary runoffs, which are later in the month and are the responsibility of the parties, though they contract the election duties to the Cler. Some cities like Friendswood and Humble are on three-year cycles, with the previous ones being 2025 and 2022, so they can show up, and we had the SD15 special election in 2024. There’s the SD04 special election this year, which will be for a small portion of the county, but offhand I’m not sure what else. We’ll find out after the District C race is over.
And that leads to the second point, which is that the runoff for District C will also be in May, but not on the May 2 uniform date, and not on the May 26 primary runoff date. It will be in between them, I believe on May 16 – I saw Teneshia Hudspeth at the March HCDP County Executive Committee meeting and asked her about it, and that’s what she said. I don’t think she specified the date but she was clear that it would be after the May 2 election, and she would be running three elections in May. I for one feel exhausted on her behalf. On the bright side, we ought to be done with elections after the primary runoff until November. So, you know, take the win where you can. And hey, nobody reading this has to vote more than twice in May, since SD04 and District C don’t overlap. What more do you want?