Voter Registration Deadline Nearing
The deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 3 general election is Oct. 5. Early voting starts Oct. 19 and runs through Oct. 30, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s office.
The last day for an application to vote by mail must be received by Friday, Oct. 23.Voters can visit votetexas.gov to confirm they are registered to vote, see what is on the ballot where they live, and get other electionrelated information. That site is maintained by the Texas Secretary of State.Meanwhile, The Texas Tribune reported that an unknown number of voter registration applications were delayed because of an error by the Texas Department of Public Safety. The agency failed to forward the applications, submitted online through its driver’s license portal, to county voter registrars.
Texas Democrats have called on Gov. Greg Abbott to investigate the problem.
With the Oct. 5 deadline approaching, the delayed registrations from DPS could add to processing backlogs at affected counties. A spokesperson for the secretary of state’s office said affected voters can still have their ballots counted as long as they submitted their registration before Oct. 5.
The DPS portal accounted for about 6 million voter registrations from 2020 to 2024. Texas has more than 18 million registered voters.
Judge: Texas Must Air-Condition All Prisons By End of 2029
A federal judge has ordered the state to aircondition its entire prison system by the end of 2029, the Austin American-Statesman reported. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has estimated that could cost the state $1.5 billion. Nearly two-thirds of the 143,000 prisoners now held in Texas prisons do not have air-conditioning. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Robert Pittman said the prison agency had “minimized and misled” the court about the seriousness of the heat problem. “The data that TDCJ does not collect also paints a picture of an agency that is not attempting to meaningfully understand or document the dangers and impacts of heat,” Pitman wrote.
A TDCJ spokesperson took issue with the judge’s characterization.
“TDCJ has robust heat mitigation efforts in place to protect the safety of its population and staff,” Amanda Hernandez said in an email.
The state will appeal the ruling.