Travis County Tax OfficeMarch 31, 2023
The last day to register to vote is Thursday, April 6, for the May 6 General and Special Election. Early voting begins April 24.
Voter registration is available at Travis County tax office locations, by completing and mailing in an application at TravisCountyTax.org, most post offices and libraries and from any of the county’s more than 630 volunteer deputy voter registrars.
“One of the most important things you can do when filling out a voter registration application is to make sure all your information is legible,” said Bruce Elfant, the Travis County voter registrar and tax assessor-collector. “You would not believe how hard it is to decipher some people’s handwriting and you can make sure all your information is put into the voter registration roll accurately by carefully filling out the application.”
Elfant also encourages those who are registered to vote to check their voter registration to make sure their information is correctly recorded in the voter registration roll.
“This is a great time for you to check your voter registration status at VoteTravis.com to ensure the information about you on the voter registration roll is accurate,” he said. “One of the common reasons we see incorrect voter registration information is people move and forget to notify us of their change of address.”
Travis County residents can update their address online. For those voters registered in another county that moved to Travis and do not have their Voter Unique Identification (VUID) number, they can find it online.
The state requires the tax office manually input voter registration applications into the voter roll, which is then sent to the Texas Secretary of State’s office for certification. Once the registrations are certified by the state office, they are sent back to the tax office.
Elfant, an ardent proponent of online voter registration, noted the Texas Legislature has refused to join 42 other states, Washington D.C. and the territory of Guam that permit online voter registration for all their eligible citizens. It took a federal court order in 2020 to force the state to allow online voter registration for Texans who use the internet to renew their state driver's licenses or update their addresses. And still, allowing all age-eligible citizens online voter registration has met stiff resistance at the Capitol.
Election legislation is controversial right now but letting Texans register to vote online is a process issue, not a partisan one, Elfant said. “Online voter registration for everyone would be so convenient for our citizens, save millions of taxpayer dollars and most importantly, it would create an accurate voter registration roll,” he added. “It is unlikely to happen in our state unless voters demand it from their state political officials.”
To learn more about online voter registration, watch the tax office video, Online Voter Registration: Paper vs. Online. Those who would like to become volunteer deputy registrars to help register voters can sign up for an online training course or a virtual class.
To find out what is on the May 6 ballot in Travis County jurisdictions, see the Sample Ballot posted by the Travis County Clerk’s Office on VoteTravis.com.