Texas
Why this South Texas county closed half its early voting sites for 2024
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SINTON — At church last month, Pam Hill’s neighbor approached her after service and asked her if she’d be opening an early voting location in their small town of Odem, just as in previous election years.
“I can’t. I’m sorry,” answered Hill, who has run elections in San Patricio County for more than two decades. “You’ll either have to wait for Election Day, or you’ll have to come to Sinton.”
Sinton, the South Texas county’s seat, is about 7 miles from Odem, a 10-to-15 minute drive down US Highway 77. But Hill knows some elderly voters in her community won’t, or can’t, make that trek. And she’s worried about it.
“My concern is, what if something happens to them between early voting and Election Day? What if they get sick, or they can’t walk? They won’t be able to go vote,” Hill said.
But Hill has no real choice but to reduce the number of early voting locations in San Patricio County from the eight offered in previous elections to four this year — she’s also shutting down longstanding sites in the small towns of Taft, Ingleside, and Gregory.
Texas lawmakers last year passed a new law requiring all counties, regardless of population, to comply with extended early voting hours at all sites. The law provides very little funding, and Hill’s budget won’t stretch to support the new requirements at all of the county’s previous sites. That means a law intended to give voters in rural areas more opportunities to vote will instead have the opposite effect, as cash-strapped small counties shut down sites when they don’t have the budget to meet the new requirements.
Lawmakers “have no idea what they’re doing to voters in my county,” Hill said. Prior to the new law, small counties had more flexibility. “To me, instead of helping voting, it’s hurting voting. We’re taking their right away” by closing those locations.
What HB 1217 says about extended early voting days and hours
The number of additional early voting days and hours required by House Bill 1217 depends on the election.
For the typically high-turnout March primary and November general election, the main early voting location — usually the county courthouse or the county’s elections administration office — must be open for at least nine hours every weekday except holidays. Early voting sites must also be open on the same days as the main location for at least eight hours each day. In the last week of early voting, the main early voting location must be open for at least 12 hours every weekday and Saturday, and at least six hours on Sunday.
Some of the early voting locations in San Patricio were typically open for less than a handful of days per week, and for seven to eight hours per day. But it was more than nothing.
In the heavily Republican county, less than an hour north of Corpus Christi and home to more than 40,000 registered voters, the money to pay election workers for the additional hours and days are not in the budget. Hill is already digging for money to deal with a different new law, which requires the county to add more polling locations on Election Day. The voting equipment for three required additional locations cost taxpayers more than $80,000, Hill said.
Hill told county leaders about the new requirements and requested more money to pay election workers for the extra hours. County leaders told her they did not want to put an additional burden on the county’s taxpayers and didn’t grant the increase.
The new law allows counties to dip into funds, known as Chapter 19 funds, that the state provides to counties for voter roll maintenance. The amount of money each county receives varies based on how many voters the county adds and removes from the roll, generally 25 cents to 40 cents for each one. The greater the number of registered voters in the county, the more money it can potentially receive.
In smaller counties, however, election officials say the money isn’t enough to pay for extended hours and the workers required to support them. Some counties’ elections departments have seen as little as $900. In some counties where the voter registrar is also the tax assessor-collector, the county clerk’s office, which is in charge of elections, doesn’t have access to the funds at all. Every other year, San Patricio receives about $15,000 from the fund, but the county spends that money paying part-time election workers who perform voter list maintenance duties and for internet access costs, which aren’t going away.
That means there’s no new money to pay for the costs associated with the extended hours now required for early voting sites.
San Patricio’s neighbors, Refugio and Bee counties, typically operate only one early voting location each, which is a common practice in rural counties across the state. For years, San Patricio did the same, before Hill decided to add more in response to requests from voters.
The requests made sense. San Patricio extends more than 55 miles across, and elderly residents prefer voting in their own community. Other residents work in agriculture, steel mills, or the oil and gas industry, and commute daily across surrounding towns and counties for work. More early voting locations made things easier.
The county began to offer one day of early voting in various towns across the county back in the mid-2000s, later adding early voting sites in the towns of Odem, Taft, Mathis, Ingleside, and Gregory for one to three days, depending on the type of election. Hill said anywhere between a handful of voters to a couple hundred would cast ballots at those locations.
“At least they had the opportunity,” Hill said.
“One size does not fit all”
During a legislative hearing in March, state Rep. Valoree Swanson, a Republican who proposed the bill, said her goal was to “make it better for our good people in rural areas.” Swanson, who represents a district in Harris County, the state’s most populous, said voters in rural areas may have to travel long distances to the polls, and the extended hours would give them more time to get there.
The bill passed with bipartisan support and went into effect in September. Swanson did not respond to a request for comment.
Similar legislation to standardize voting hours across counties, ostensibly to increase voting access, has been approved in other states, and similar problems have followed where election officials lack the resources to keep up with the demands.
In 2018, North Carolina legislators approved Senate Bill 325. Not long after, nearly half of the state’s 100 counties had to shut down some early voting sites, in part because of the law. The state did not provide additional funding for the counties to comply.
Experts say research has shown that requiring additional locations or extended hours can negatively impact voters’ experience in jurisdictions that are strapped for funds.
“When legislatures try to manage local governments, it invariably fails because one size does not fit all,” said Bob Stein, a political science professor at Rice University who has done research on when and where people vote, and on early voting. “You’ve got to trust local election officials. The people that run elections in their jurisdictions, who have the data about their own jurisdictions, they should be trusted to make these decisions about the hours and locations they need.”
Some residents who used San Patricio’s early voting sites aren’t happy.
Isabel Martinez, 56, a resident of Odem, has for years voted early in town because “it’s just convenient and I can go just whenever I have some time,” she said. But now, Odem’s early voting location at the Planter’s Grain Co-op won’t be available until Election Day.
Martinez, who works at a fast food restaurant in the evenings, said that whether she votes at all in the March primary, and when, is now up in the air. It’ll depend on her work schedule. She says others in her community may feel the same way.
“People who usually do early voting, if there’s not a place, it’s going to deter them. They’re just not going to do it,” Martinez said. “And on Election Day, if there’s a long line and people can’t wait forever … they’re going to leave and not vote.”
Residents of other counties are facing similar constraints. In West Texas, the new mandate has prevented at least one county from opening additional early voting locations.
Krystal Valentin, the election official in Terry County, a small rural county southwest of Lubbock, told Votebeat that prior to the passage of the new law, she was planning on opening an additional early voting location for residents in the town of Meadow. Many residents in the town, she said, are elderly people who are homebound or unable to drive long distances.
But she’s had to scrap that plan. It’s simply not something the county can afford to do. In order to fulfill the extended hours requirements, the county has already spent an additional $20,000 in order to pay additional workers to fill the shifts at the existing sites. Adding more is out of the question.
“If we could offer an additional location for those voters in Meadow for a day or two, for a couple of hours, we would do it,” Valentin said. “But now because this law says we have to have so many days and so many hours, we can’t afford to do that.”
Has your county closed early voting locations near you due to the new mandate? We want to know how it’s impacting your ability to vote. Email Votebeat reporter Natalia Contreras at ncontreras@votebeat.org
Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. She is based in Corpus Christi.
Disclosure: Rice University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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The NHL took the first step toward expansion in Texas earlier this week, agreeing to terms with billionaire Dan Friedkin and his family to explore the feasibility of putting a franchise in Houston or Austin.
Far enough from the Dallas Stars, who relocated from Minnesota in 1993, a new team would not interfere with their territorial rights. And the league has shown no fear of adding one team at a time, so No. 33 does not have to come with No. 34.
“Symmetry I don’t think should necessarily govern expansion,” Commissioner Gary Bettman said Tuesday. “You expand if you think it makes sense and enhances what the league has.”
What is behind the NHL’s interest in Texas
Money is the obvious answer. Bettman said the total investment of the project would be some $3.5 billion, which would include expansion fees paid to established owners along with the cost of building a new arena.
The Houston Rockets’ arena downtown is publicly owned but controlled by team owner Tilman Fertitta’s Clutch City Sports and Entertainment group. The home of the American Hockey League’s Texas Stars, in the Austin suburb of Cedar Park, has a capacity of 8,000 that is a little over half the size of the NHL’s smallest current rink (Winnipeg).
“I would be surprised if the NHL would be OK with an expansion team that does not have a new arena,” said Brian Mills, an associate professor at the University of Texas who teaches courses on sports economics and strategy. “The revenue potential with the luxury boxes and the way that they set those up and the money that they like to extract from the local cities is way too large to pass up.”
They are also huge markets. Houston at nearly 2.4 million is the fourth-most-populated U.S. city; Austin at just over 1 million is in the top 12.
“Obviously it makes sense if you’re a sports league to have a franchise in the nation’s fifth-largest metro area and one that is growing rapidly,” said Holy Cross professor Victor Matheson, an expert in sports economics. “Houston obviously makes sense in general as a destination for any league.”
Austin is smaller but has doubled its population since the mid-1990s and has seen an infusion of people over the past five years. Only eight of the NHL’s existing markets are bigger.
“It’s becoming more and more of a tech city, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more hockey fans here than there used to be,” Mills said. “I would imagine there’s some market for the NHL here in Austin, particularly more than when it was a sleepy, small town capital of Texas 30 years ago.”
History of hockey in Houston and Austin
When hockey was picking up in popularity in the 1960s and ‘70s and the NHL went from six teams to 18, the rival World Hockey Association was founded and Houston got a franchise when the one in Dayton, Ohio, failed to get off the ground.
The Aeros’ inaugural season was in 1972-78, and they were best known for “Mr. Hockey” Gordie Howe playing for them along with sons Mark and Marty. They won four Avco World Trophies as WHA champions before folding.
An AHL team using the same name existed in Houston from 1994-2013. The Texas Stars have played in Austin since ’09.
“There’s some interest of hockey,” University of Houston economics professor Steven G. Craig said. “Houston is full of immigrants from around the country and around the world. And Austin is sort of similar in the sense of a pretty heterogeneous population.”
Pros and cons of a Houston or Austin NHL franchise
Growing the sport in another so-called non-traditional spot is a big benefit. Smashing successes in places like Las Vegas and Tampa, Florida, show what hockey can do across the Sun Belt when strong ownership is involved.
“Southern cities have been doing pretty well now these days in the NHL: the Lightning and the Panthers,” Mills said of the two teams in Florida. “You’ve got some pretty good hockey teams after some pretty miserable failures with some earlier expansion to the South.”
Abandoning the second try in Atlanta (the Thrashers from 2000-11) was more a failure of ownership than the market. The same could be said in Arizona, where a revolving door of owners led to arena miscues and eventually the Coyotes being sold and moved to Salt Lake City in 2024 to become the Utah Mammoth.
A 33rd team also means 20-23 more NHL players and hopefuls in the minors. The changing landscape of hockey development at the junior and college levels has the potential to churn more talent through the pipeline in North America than ever before, along with players coming from Europe.
“You do have a pretty big pool of players,” Matheson said. “I’m not particularly worried about diluting the talent there because I think there’s a lot of skill.”
What’s next and where the 34th team may be
After this six-month exploratory phase is complete, recent history suggests a season-ticket drive would be one of the subsequent steps. Ticket drives validated interest that led to the Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken.
The Board of Governors would need to approve moving forward in the process. No vote has yet been held, though the executive committee supported exploring Houston and Austin.
And while the NHL is comfortable with unbalanced Eastern and Western conferences, getting to 34 teams seems inevitable if it goes to 33. Bettman said the board on Tuesday was updated on situations in Atlanta and Arizona, and it would be no surprise if one of those places got another crack at it.
ere’s everything you need to know about one of the most recognizable trophies in North American sports — The Stanley Cup.
This coverage is made possible through Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting access. Sign up for Votebeat Texas’ free newsletters here.
Texas lawmakers on Tuesday asked the Texas Secretary of State’s Office for assurances that issues with the state’s voter registration and election management system would be fixed before the November midterm election.
“Those fixes have to be done, because if we go into a November election and we don’t, we can’t claim that we have integrity in the voter roll,” said state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Republican from Harris County, during a Senate State Affairs Committee hearing that addressed voter registration and voter list maintenance issues.
Bettencourt said he’s heard complaints about the system, known as TEAM, from election officials in Travis, Austin, and Jackson counties, among others.
Christina Adkins, the elections division director at the secretary of state’s office, said the agency is “dedicating every possible resource that we have within our office to resolving these issues.”
“There is nothing more important in our office than this project,” Adkins said.
TEAM was redesigned and redeveloped by the state and relaunched last summer. Election officials say they have struggled with it since then, and though some functionality issues have been resolved, others continue to come up.
For example, election officials have reported that processes such as voter registration status lookups and precinct assignments frequently don’t work properly. In addition, the system often malfunctions when attempting to produce reports of registered voters and voters who have requested a mail ballot, forcing some election officials to produce their own spreadsheets to keep track.
The problems, election officials say, have added financial and staffing strains on counties already strapped for resources.
The system was developed by Civix, a Louisiana-based vendor. The majority of the state’s 254 counties rely on TEAM to plan elections and maintain their voter rolls. Even counties that instead use software from a state-approved private vendor to manage their voter rolls are required by state law to sync their data with TEAM daily, and are required to use TEAM to verify a voter’s identity and their eligibility to cast a ballot.
Groups representing election officials across Texas have asked the agency to halt the TEAM update rollout and address issues that they said “directly impact key parts of the election and jury process.” The groups first outlined their complaints in a letter to Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson in October, and sent another one in February.
Earlier this month, Nelson announced she’d be stepping down as of July 17. Gov. Greg Abbott has yet to appoint her successor.
Secretary of state, vendor working together on fixes
According to public records, the state’s contract with Civix is for $17 million. The secretary of state’s office told Votebeat last year that the money for it came from a mix of state dollars and federal funds allocated under the 2002 Help America Vote Act, earmarked for improving election administration.
Bettencourt raised questions about Civix’s work during the hearing. “When I get half a dozen counties with their hair on fire, and some counties are small, and some of them are big, that means that the vendor is behind on actually delivering fixes to the system,” Bettencourt said.
He directly asked Adkins whether Civix was up for the task. “Yes, sir,” she responded, adding her office is working with the vendor on fixes. Civix did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Civix, Adkins said, also manages voter registration systems for other states, including Louisiana and Iowa, but Texas is the vendor’s biggest election management and voter registration software customer.
The Texas Secretary of State’s Office has said it anticipated technical issues with this “once-in-a-decade upgrade,” though it pointed to some unexpected challenges that have exacerbated the issues.
The agency specified that it didn’t anticipate the updated system having to handle significant amounts of data from large counties that abruptly stopped using a vendor that had financial problems. It also noted that redrawn boundaries following last year’s unexpected midcycle redistricting created additional complications that prevented counties from mailing out voter registration certificates on time.
Disclosure: Texas Secretary of State has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
Natalia Contreras is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. She is based in Corpus Christi. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@votebeat.org.
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