Travis County volunteers help hundreds register as Texas voter deadline hits

AUSTIN, Texas — Monday was the voter registration deadline in Texas, where several Travis County groups burned the midnight oil to help people beat the deadline.

Texas is one of the few states left that doesn’t allow online voter registration. From the county tax office on Airport Boulevard to the University of Texas at Austin and several coffee shops in between, Austinites were still able to register to vote until midnight, thanks to volunteers who were committed to working until the very last minute.

Radio, Coffee and Beer, Radio Coffee East, and The Front Page were coffee shops all open until midnight Monday.

For Destiny Osborne, it’s better late than never.

“To be honest, I wasn’t actually going to vote,” Osborne said. “but my boyfriend and my boyfriend’s mom was telling me to vote, like, hey, you need to vote. It’s important for you. All votes matter. Like, every vote counts.”

The 19-year-old moved to Austin a couple of months ago to be with family and is excited to participate in her first presidential election.

“Now I can say, hey, I voted man, like you should go too,” Osborne said. “You have a word, use your word.”

She’s one of thousands across Travis County who waited until the last day of the state’s voter registration deadline, but county voter registrar Bruce Elfant says that’s exactly who they’re there for.

“We’ve added about 10,000 registered voters in the last month, and we will probably do another 10,000 today,” Elfant said.

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A tent was set up outside the Airport Boulevard tax office to help people register and check their voting status.

“If you’re able to go to votetravis.gov and look yourself up, that’ll give you peace of mind if your application is there,” Elfant said. “If you’re not able to do that, my motto is, when in doubt, fill it out.”

Elfant says some people might find themselves suspended if they moved and the tax office was unable to find them, but all you have to do is bring the correct credentials on Election Day to vote and be removed from that list.

“When you go vote, they’re going to require one of many forms of ID, certainly your Texas driver’s license if you have that,” Elfant said. “You can vote with your passport… utility bill, a bank statement, or any government document with your current name and address on it.”

There have been some big changes, including the polling site at the University of Texas at Austin moving from the Flawn Academic Center to the Texas Union right next door due to construction.

“We’re going to be advocating for the polling place in the future to return to Flawn Academic Center. But in the meantime, we’re going to work with the situation we have.” University of Texas at Austin University Democrats President Brian Pena said.

UT’s University Democrats also hosted a voter registration drive until midnight, where Pena says they were helping spread the word. Pena says his organization is even providing shuttles on election day to help with expected wait times.

“I think in combination with a lot of education, like we’re doing right now, and our polling shuttles, I think we’ll have an adequate polling place out of the Union,” Pena said.

And after the registration deadline, that’s where the next fight will be.

“Texas is a wildly under-voting state, especially our demographic, 18 to 35 young people,” Pena said. “Any election we vote our full strength, we have real impact.”

Now the attention turns to early voting which begins October 21st. A list of polling sites can be found here.