Student Voting Guide | Texas

Registration

http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/index.shtml (registration form available online)

The registration deadline in Texas is ordinarily the 29th day before the election.  Technically, the voter registration deadline is 30 days before the election, but if the 30th day before Election Day is a weekend or national holiday, voting registration forms are due on the next business day.[1]   Because the 30th day before a Tuesday is always a Sunday, the deadline for all elections held on a Tuesday (including all federal elections) is 29 days before the election.  If you register by mail, your registration application must be postmarked by that date.[2]

In Texas, you can register to vote within two months of your 18^th birthday.[3]

Residency

Under Texas law, your “residence” for voting is your fixed home, the place where you “[intend] to return after any temporary absence.”[4] You must actually live at your voting address and intend to make it your current, legal residence.[5] However, you need not intend to stay at your Texas residence after graduation, or for any set amount of time.[6]

Texas state officials recognize that many students who move to attend school may have more than one home that could be considered their voting residence. The Texas Attorney General has stressed that students—like all other voters—have the right to determine their residence.[7] A student’s intent to establish residency is the key determinative factor.[8] The Texas Secretary of State has stated clearly that students may choose which residence they consider their primary residence, and register either at their parents’ home address or at their school address.[9] “The presumption is not in favor of the parents’ home or the college home; rather, the presumption is in favor of the voter’s own assessment of the facts and his or her intent.”[10]  At times, students in Texas have had difficulty registering in particular counties, but this ruling from the Secretary of State is clear, and any registrar who holds you to a different standard is violating the law.

At School. Students attending school in Texas should be able to register and vote at their school address, because Texas law is clear that students who consider their school address their current fixed residence are entitled to vote there, regardless of their future plans.  Still, students have historically encountered difficulties in registering in certain counties.

At Home. Students who lived in Texas before moving elsewhere to attend school, and who wish to establish or keep their Texas voting residency (i.e., at their parents’ Texas address), should have no problem doing so unless they have already registered to vote in another state.  Like all states, Texas allows students to keep their voting residency even if they move out of the district to attend school, and the only way you will lose this residency is by establishing residency in a new state.[11]  While registering to vote in another state is not automatically considered abandonment of your Texas residency, some judges or officials might view it as such.

Challenges to Residency. Election officials should not regularly challenge what a voter states on his or her registration form.[12]  If an official does challenge your eligibility to vote based on residency, they must explain their reasons for the challenge and tell you how to request a hearing to appeal the issue.[13] You are entitled to a hearing with the registrar of voters within 10 days of your request.[14] At this hearing, you have the right to appear personally and to offer evidence on your behalf.[15] After the hearing, the registrar must make a prompt determination of your eligibility.[16]  Your eligibility can also be challenged by another eligible voter of the county before the registrar, following a similar procedure.[17]  You are entitled to appeal the registrar’s decision in the local district court within 30 days, but the district court’s decision is final.[18]  Your eligibility to vote based on residency cannot be challenged at the polls.

Identification

All in-person voters in Texas must show their voter registration certificate.  If they don’t have a certificate, they either have to show ID and sign an affidavit or vote a provisional ballot.  A wide range of ID is accepted.

At the polls, every Texas voter must show their voter registration certificate, the confirmation of your registration you should get from the registrar in the mail.[19]  If you are unable to show your certificate, you will have to sign an affidavit and show ID.[20]  The following forms of ID are accepted at the polls: (1) a driver's license or personal identification card from any state, regardless of whether the license or card has expired; (2) any photo ID with the voter’s name, including student IDs; (3) a birth certificate; (4) U.S. citizenship papers; (5) a U.S. passport; (6) official mail from a governmental entity and addressed to you; and (7) a copy of a current utility bill (including cell phone bills), bank statement, government check, paycheck, housing bill from a public college or university, or other government document that shows the voter’s name and address, including a housing bill from a public college or university.[21]  

First time voters who registered without providing a driver’s license or the last four digits of their social security number may be asked to provide two forms of ID, one of which must be a photo ID.  If you cannot show the required ID, you’ll have to vote a provisional ballot.  The ballot will be counted if it can be determined from your ballot and registration records that you are an eligible voter.[22]

Absentee Voting

http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/forms/pol-sub/5-15f.pdf

Texas allows those who are out of their county of residence for both Election Day and the in-person early voting period (the two calendar weeks before Election Day, ending on the Friday before the election) to vote by mail.

All absentee voting is called “early voting” in Texas, even when you vote by mail.[23]  Any registered voter who expects to be away from home during the in-person early voting period[24] and on Election Day may vote early by mail.[25]  To vote early by mail, you must submit an early voting application, available on the web site of the Secretary of State at the above link or by calling 1-800-252-VOTE. Your county clerk must receive your application at least 7 days before Election Day.[26]  If that date is a weekend or national holiday, your application may be received on the next business day.  Your mail-in ballot must be received by your county clerk by the time polls close on Election Day.[27]  Neither your ballot nor your application need to be witnessed.

Early Voting

As a convenience to voters, Texas has early voting which begins 17 days before the election and ends 4 days before Election Day.[28]  At early voting sites, you can vote any precinct’s ballot for that county.  If you do not consider your school address to be your permanent address, or if you have not changed your residence yet, then early voting provides an opportunity to vote a ballot at the residence from which you are absent. You should contact your local elections official for the location of your early voting site. 

 

 

Last Updated in April 2010

 

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[1] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 13.143(a), (e) (2010).

[2] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 13.143(d).

[3] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 13.001(b).

[4] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 1.015.

[5] See Mills v. Bartlett, 377 S.W.2d 636, 637 (Tex.1964).

[6] See Mills, 377 S.W.2d at 637; United States v. Texas, 445 F. Supp. 1245, 1249, 1257 (S. D. Tex. 1978), aff’d sub nom Symm v. United States, 379 U.S. 1105 (1979); Letter from Geffrey S. Connor, Texas Secretary of State, to Rick Perry, Governor of Texas (Jan. 22, 2004), available at http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/elo/gsc1.pdf (last visited on April 26, 2010).

[7] Residency Requirements for Voting in an Election in Texas, Op. Att’y Gen. No. GA-0141 at 12 (Tex. 2004).

[8] Id.

[9] Letter from Geoffrey S. Connor, Texas Secretary of State, to Rick Perry, Governor of Texas (Jan. 22, 2004), available at http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/elo/gsc1.pdf.

[10] Id. at 6–7.

[11] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 1.015.

[12] Letter from Geoffrey S. Connor, Texas Secretary of State, to Rick Perry, Governor of Texas at 6–7 (Jan. 22, 2004), available at http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/elo/gsc1.pdf

[13] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 13.075.

[14] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 13.077.

[15] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 13.077(c).

[16] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. at § 13.079(a)..

[17] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 16.091–095.

[18] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 17.001–008.

[19] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 63.001.

[20] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. §§ 63.001, 63.006, 63.008.

[21] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 63.0101.             

[22] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 65.054.

[23] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 81.001.

[24] Usually 17 days before Election Day through 4 days before Election Day.  Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 85.001 (2010).

[25] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 82.001.

[26] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 86.007.

[27] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 86.007.    

[28] Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 85.001.