Texas law sets a firm, uniform rule for every county: voters must be registered at least 30 days before Election Day, and this fall's Nov. 3 Uniform Election is no exception. For Travis County residents, that puts the registration deadline at Monday, Oct. 5 — the last day a completed application can be postmarked or delivered in order to count for the general election.
Texans who are already registered and haven't moved don't need to do anything. But the deadline matters for a specific group of people: anyone who has never registered in Texas, anyone who has moved to a new county or a new address within Travis County since the last election, anyone who changed their name, and any 17-year-old who will turn 18 on or before Election Day. Under state law, eligible voters must be U.S. citizens, Travis County residents, at least 18 by Nov. 3, not currently serving a felony sentence (including parole or probation), and not judged by a court to be totally mentally incapacitated without the right to vote.
Registering is free and can be done a few different ways. The most direct route is downloading and mailing a paper application from VoteTexas.gov or the Texas Secretary of State's office directly to the Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector's Voter Registration Division, which administers registration for the county. Texans renewing or applying for a driver's license or state ID through the Department of Public Safety can also register at the same time under the state's "motor voter" process. A number of community organizations and campaigns also deploy volunteer deputy registrars around the county in the weeks before the deadline — a role Texas law requires to be filled by someone specifically appointed and trained by the county, rather than a self-service online option, since Texas is one of a minority of states that does not currently offer true online voter registration.
Once registration closes, the calendar moves quickly. Early voting by personal appearance begins Oct. 19 and runs through Oct. 30, giving Travis County voters a 12-day window that includes two full weekends — a stretch lawmakers lengthened statewide under Senate Bill 2753, the early-voting integration law the Texas House Elections Committee was still monitoring the rollout of as recently as this month. Voters who'd rather cast a mail ballot — available to Texans 65 and older, voters with a qualifying disability, those who will be out of the county during the entire voting period, or those confined in jail without a felony conviction — must have their application to vote by mail received by the county, not just postmarked, by Oct. 23.
The stakes on this year's Travis County ballot are real even where some down-ballot races were effectively settled in the spring: county judge and two commissioner's court seats were decided in the March primary and May runoff, as this site has reported, but voters will still weigh in on Austin's $295 million parks and libraries bond, state legislative and congressional races under the current district lines, and whatever statewide contests land on the same ballot, including the governor's race. None of that matters for anyone who misses the Oct. 5 cutoff. Travis County's Voter Registration Division fields questions on registration status, address updates and deputy registrar appointments by phone and online through the county's elections website, and Texans anywhere in the state can check their registration status directly through the Secretary of State's VoteTexas.gov portal.