AUSTIN (KXAN) — Monday marks the deadline to register in order to cast a ballot in the upcoming Texas primary, and Travis County worked to make it easier for people to sign up for their civic duty at the last minute.
Volunteers are currently stationed until midnight at the main Travis County Tax Office, located at 2433 Ridgepoint Drive in north Austin, so that eligible voters can still come register in time for the March 5 primary elections.
Bruce Elfant, the Travis County tax assessor-collector who oversees the voter registration system, said Monday that new voter registration countywide is climbing at a slower pace ahead of the primary.
“I think because this primary is not viewed as so hotly contested at the top of the ballot,” Elfant said. “We’re not seeing as much activity as we have in previous primaries, where there was a lot of hot races at the top, but there are a lot of important races. It’s very important that citizens exercise their right and responsibility to weigh in on all these races on the ballot.”
As of Monday morning, he said Travis County is just short of having 890,000 registered voters. He added he’d like the county to reach 900,000 registered voters by the November general election, especially because he’s retiring from his post at the end of the year.
“I’m very excited about the general election,” Elfant said. “In Travis County, we always have high turnouts. We want our voices to count, and I have every bit of confidence that that’s going to be the case in November. You know, your vote is your voice, and we live in a free society. One of the things about that is that we have to weigh in, and we have to choose our leaders.”
UT Austin voter registration efforts
The last-minute push to add new people to the Travis County voting rolls extended to the University of Texas at Austin campus.
Texas Rising, the youth mobilization arm of the progressive Texas Freedom Network, had some of its student volunteers set up outside Gregory Gym to remind their classmates about Monday’s voter registration deadline for the primary. They held sparkly heart signs with the word “voter” written in glitter on them and asked passing students whether they had registered to vote yet.
By mid-Monday afternoon, Maggie DiSanza and the other students got about 40 students registered to vote. However, she said their work is only just beginning. To combat the perception of younger voters being less reliable, she said Texas Rising will soon send out reminders to get out the vote and keep students informed about key dates and races that are approaching.
“There’s a lot of statements saying that young people are kind of disinterested in elections, they don’t want to get engaged. In my experience, that’s been largely false,” DiSanza said. “It’s not a matter of people not wanting to engage, but it’s a matter of people not having the resources or information to engage. So it’s not that students are disinterested or don’t care about what’s happening at City Council or even the state legislature because they are deeply impacted by so many of the issues…It’s just a matter of they don’t know that you have to register 30 days before the election. They don’t know that there are on-campus polling locations. They don’t know when elections are, and it’s our job to kind of bridge that gap and give people access so that they can engage.”
Jacob Hernandez, a second-year public relations major, stopped by the Texas Rising table with his friend where they both ended up registering to vote. He said this will be the first presidential election he’ll vote in, so he called it both exciting and nerve-wracking to finally be part of the process.
Hernandez said the issues he cares about most for this election include abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights and climate change.
“Now that I’m finally of age to vote, and the presidency is coming up, I thought it was important to finally register to vote,” Hernandez explained. “This is my first time voting for president, and I would like to see some change and hopefully have a better America coming up. So I just registered to vote early, trying to get as quick as possible, just so that I don’t forget anything and just to finally have a say in our nation.”
Early voting in the Texas primary begins on Feb. 20 and lasts through March 1. The last day to apply for ballot by mail is Feb. 23. Election Day is March 5.