Early voting in the November election begins next week. For those planning to vote by mail, the deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot is Oct. 25.
In Texas, you can vote by mail only if you:
- won't be in the county you're registered in during early voting and on Election Day
- are sick or disabled
- are expecting to give birth within three weeks before or after Election Day
- are 65 or older on Election Day
- are in prison or civil commitment, but are otherwise eligible
About 10% of ballot-by-mail applications are rejected because of missing ID numbers or other discrepancies.
In 2021, the state Legislature passed Senate Bill 1, which added a number of restrictions and criminal penalties related to voting, including new identification requirements for people voting by mail.
Travis County Clerk Dyana Limon-Mercado said the process is “not super easy,” because there are so many rules and options for people voting by mail.
She said people who are new to the process should call their elections office if the application isn't clear "to help them answer the questions on the application correctly.”
Travis County has been working to get as many people informed about their voting rights heading into the election.
To apply by mail, applicants are required to include a driver’s license number or Social Security number. Prior to the law, voters didn't have to provide either of these on an application.
Limon-Mercado said the ID number has to match the one the person used to register to vote, but for some people that was decades ago.
“We do encourage people to include both numbers – your Texas ID number and last four digits of your Social Security number – that way there is no question about which one you used on your original voter registration application,” she said. “This way we will find you and be able to approve and accept our application.”
She said adding a voter registration number is also helpful, if you know it.
The Travis County clerk’s office has mailed more than 23,000 ballots to qualified voters already. Limon-Mercado expects that number to rise.
More than 925,000 people in Travis County are registered to vote in the upcoming election, according to data from the Travis County Tax Office. That's 96.2% of eligible voters in the county.
Nearly 97% of eligible voters in the county were registered in the last presidential election.
Tiffany Seward, a spokesperson for the tax office, said the Secretary of State is still collecting data on voter registration, but she expects Travis County to rank among the highest in the state.
"These numbers are based on estimates, so a difference this small isn’t a significant indicator of voter behavior," she told KUT. "But our office is confident that once information about other counties is available, we will still have one of the highest voter registration rates in Texas."
The deadline to apply to vote by mail is Oct. 25 at 5 p.m.
To track your application or find out more about what’s on the ballot and where to vote, visit votetravis.gov.
