Patti Fink

In a year when voting is paramount, here are some tips about voter registration and voting in Texas

DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com

The Democratic National Convention is over, and Election Day is on Nov. 5. That is just 67 days away (from today, Aug. 30). But don’t wait 67 days to make sure you are eligible to vote on Nov. 5.

To register to vote in Texas, complete a voter registration application and return it to your county election office at least 30 days before Election Day. In other words, return the application by Oct. 6. That’s just 37 days away.

On weekends before elections, Stonewall Democrats usually has a table set up outside Hunky’s on Cedar Springs Road with voter registration cards. You can fill out the card and give it back to the group. They have official voter registrars who will take the card to Dallas County for Dallas County residents.

Don’t worry about party affiliation. Registering to vote in Texas is not when you register in a party. Everyone registers as independents. When you vote in a primary, you choose which party’s primary you want to participate in. That registers you in a party for a two-year election cycle.

By the way, the next round of primaries will be for city elections that take place in May. Those are non-partisan and don’t register you in a party. Only county, state and federal elections are partisan, and those are held in November.

Update your voter registration information online at Texas.gov or send your county a new registration card. If you are checking your voter registration and it is marked “suspense,” the county has information that you have moved. Fill out a new registration card and send it to your county or update the information online.

If you recently moved to Texas or are getting a new driver’s license at a Texas Department of Public Safety office, you can register to vote there.

In Dallas, Collin and Tarrant counties, you may vote at any polling location in the county where you live and are registered.

When you get to the polls to vote, you must show identification. Certain forms of state ID are not acceptable, such as a Texas state college or university ID. Only seven forms of ID are acceptable:
• Texas Driver License issued by DPS
• Texas Election Identification Certificate issued by DPS
• Texas Personal Identification Card issued by DPS
• Texas Handgun Licenses 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)

If your name doesn’t appear on the official list of registered voters, you have the right to cast a provisional ballot. After the polls close, if your registration is found to be valid, your vote will be counted.

If someone other than an election official questions your voter registration status, here’s what longtime election judge Patti Fink suggests you do:

No campaigning may take place within 100 feet of the entrance to the polling place. Only election officials and voters may be within the 100-foot marker. Fink said if anyone approaches you in a polling place demanding you prove your citizenship, ask to speak to the election judge.

“I would stop that immediately,” she said.

Under Texas law, the only persons that could hang out to harass voters would be an official poll watcher, but a poll watcher can only talk to an election judge.

Fink said if you are on the voter rolls, you can’t be denied a ballot, and the election judge would call the sheriff’s office to have the person harassing voters removed from the polling place.