Major election changes are coming to Texas – no gap between early voting and Election Day, more steps assuring election integrity and other changes to improve the process for voters – but local officials say key parts are still a work in progress.
“The state is actually putting together a steering committee,” Roxine Stinson, elections administrator for Lubbock County, said.
The committee will then give instructions before August 2027 to local election officials all over Texas like Stinson.
Until those instructions come in, Stinson won’t know for sure how this will affect her employees or budget requests. But some of the changes take effect sooner, and she believes her office is well prepared.
Seven of the biggest changes
- Same-day update your address at the polls
Bill: SB 2217
Effective: September 1
Description: Allows voters to update their home addresses at the polling place if they have recently moved within the same county. - No gap between early voting and Election Day
Bill: SB 2753
Effective: Law takes effect September 1, but voters won’t see this until after a steering committee finishes its work.
Description: Eliminates the three-day break between early voting and Election Day. - Cell phones allowed in line
Bill: HB 3909
Effective: September 1
Description: Allows the use of smart phones while waiting in line but still restricts their use within the same room as voting. - Easier to correct mail ballot errors
Bill: SB 2964
Effective: September 1
Description: Easier to correct mistakes like missing signatures or incorrect voter ID numbers. - Curbside voting requires signed affidavit
Bill: HB 521
Effective: September 1
Description: Requires a voter to sign an affidavit before curbside voting. - Expanded post-election audits with public posting
Bill: SB 827
Effective: September 1
Description: More comprehensive audits which must also be released to the public. - Precinct Restructuring
Bill: SB 2753
Effective: September 1 (adjustments by August 1, 2027)
Description: Counties may need to realign precinct boundaries or voting locations to meet certain limits. (For Lubbock County, the most likely changes are for new growth and newly annexed areas of the city.)
The biggest change
Stinson thinks the biggest change comes from Senate Bill 2753, which eliminates the three-day gap between early voting and election day. That’s the bill that needs a steering committee by the Texas Secretary of State.
“It will not be implemented this first election,” Stinson said.
That’s good news for her because she’ll need time to get ready. So will all the election offices in Texas.
LubbockLigthts.com asked Stinson if not getting a break between early voting and Election Day might make it harder to find poll workers.
“It’s getting harder to find poll workers and we could run into that,” Stinson said.
That same bill (SB 2753) requires the county to reexamine its voting precincts.
“Your voting precincts can only have a cap of 5,000 for a county our size. … Well, the county is growing, and we have voting precincts with registered voters that are over 4,000. Some are over 3,000,” Stinson said.
Add recent city annexations to the list too. So far, so good. The county can handle that.
But there are lawmakers who want to get rid of voting centers and go back to old-fashioned precinct-based voting.
“Some of our voting precincts are so large if we ever have to go back to ‘precinct based,’ we would have to have about 80 polling sites. We do not have those in this county,” Stinson said.
“Some voting precincts … have no place to vote. It’s all residential,” Stinson said.
Some rural areas of the county also have no buildings suitable for a voting location, she said.
Expanded audits
The official legislative analysis of SB 827 said, “In recent years, concerns over the accuracy and integrity of electronic voting systems have grown.”
Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill into law in June.
“The bill increases the scope of manual audits, requiring … a hand count in a randomly selected percentage of polling locations and precincts, including mail-in ballots,” the analysis said. (Click here to see the analysis.)
Stinson said, “We already pretty much did what this bill says. … I’m really hoping it does not affect us.”
The bill also calls for something called a risk-limiting audit, which is like a spot check to make sure the election results are correct without doing a full recount.
Stinson said her office already did three test runs after elections with risk-limiting audits and did really well with them.
“I’m a numbers person and I really enjoy it. The more audits, the happier I am,” Stinson said.
The results must be made public under the new law.
More security – under lock & key
One of the bills Abbott signed demands higher standards for voting machine tests. As part of that law, state officials suggested keeping things locked up – both machines and blank election forms.
During a budget hearing last month, Stinson told county commissioners, “[State officials are] suggesting [forms be] put under lock and key. So that way nobody can just walk through and help themselves.”
The Lubbock County voting equipment already has its own locked room. That’s not the case for blank forms such as mail-in ballots.
Stinson told commissioners during her budget presentation, someone would need to go through several locked doors to get to the blank forms, but they don’t have their own separate room.
She’d like to change that.
Change your address
Voters will notice Senate Bill 2217. It allows them to change the address on their voter registration at the voting location. However, there’s a limitation.
“You can do this if you’ve moved within the county,” Stinson said.
If you come in from another state or from another part of Texas, this provision is no help.
Phones, curbside voting and fixing mail ballots
Voters can use their smart phones while standing in line to vote.
It used to be forbidden to use a cell phone within 100 feet of a voting location. The law changed that.
The new law now says, “A person may not use a wireless communication device within a room in which voting is taking place.”
Curbside voting is different.
Stinson said, “There is an affidavit the voter will have to sign if they’re voting curbside. However, we cannot ask what the disability is.”
Stinson described it as an honor system. Voters do not disclose the disability in order to vote curbside. You determine for yourself if your disability requires the extra help.
Fixing small mistakes on a mail ballot should be easier. There was already a provision in state law to let folks correct a mistake in their address or voter ID numbers. But there was no standard process to notify voters. This bill fixes it, requiring notification within two days.
And the correction form can now be mailed back.
However, if it’s getting close to Election Day, Stinson recommends coming to her office in person – just in case.
