HOUSTON — More than two million people are registered to vote in Harris County, and if you haven’t done so yet, you only have a few more hours to get your application in before the March Primary.
The first thing you need to know is you can not register to vote on Election Day. You must be registered before the deadline, and that’s coming up on Monday, Jan. 31.
If you are a new voter in Harris County, you must fill out a paper form.
If you want help in person, a volunteer deputy voter registrar can assist you at any of their 10 locations from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
These are those locations:
- 1001 Preston, Houston, Texas, 77002 (Main Office)
- 11525 Todd St Suite #100, Houston, TX 77055 (Election Technology Center)
- 6000 Chimney Rock Rd., Houston, Texas 77081 (Bellaire)
- 16715 Clay Rd. Houston, Texas 77084 (Clay Rd)
- 14350 Wallisville Rd., Houston, Texas 77049 (Jim Fonteno)
- 101 S. Richey, Suite E, Pasadena, Texas 77506 (John Phelps)
- 7300 N. Shepherd Dr, Houston, Texas 77091 (Mickey Leland)
- 5300 Griggs Rd., Houston, Texas 77021 (Palm Center)
- 1001 SGT Macario Garcia, Houston, Texas 77011 (Raul C. Martinez)
- 1721 Pech Rd., Houston, Texas 77055 (Spring Branch)
If you want to take care of it on your own, you can pick up a paper form from one of those locations, your local library, post office or you can print it out.
Fill it out and drop it back off in person at one of those 10 locations by 4:30 p.m. on Monday or you can mail it to this address:
- Isabel Longoria
- Elections Administrator
- P.O. Box 3527
- Houston, Texas 77253-3527
But it must be postmarked by Monday. Thirty days later, you should get your voter registration card in the mail.
If you’re already registered to vote, starting next week, all active voters in Harris County will begin receiving their new blue voter registration card, replacing the orange ones.
If you have changed your name or address since the last time you voted, you may not get yours.
But, you have until Monday to get that fixed. You’ll want to do this now to make sure you have no issues when it comes time to vote.
To change your information, you can fill out that same form and send it in, or the easiest way to do it is to go online.
The Secretary of State has a website to help you, and it takes only a few minutes.
You’ll need your ID, Social Security Number and your Voter Unique Identifier. That can be found on the Harris Votes website by doing a simple voter registration search.
To be eligible for registration as a voter in this state, a person must:
- be 18 years of age or older
- be a United States citizen
- not have been determined by a final judgment of a court exercising probate jurisdiction to be:
- totally mentally incapacitated or partially mentally incapacitated without the right to vote
- not have been finally convicted of a felony or, if so convicted, must have:
- fully discharged the person’s sentence, including any term of incarceration, parole, or supervision, or completed a period of probation ordered by any court; or been pardoned or otherwise released from the resulting disability to vote; and be a resident of the county in which application for registration is made.