Texas voter rolls hit record high before 2018 midterms registration deadline

Man protests outside Texas capitol in Austin — (Image credit: Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images)

Voter registration in Texas and 12 other states ended on Tuesday for the 2018 midterm elections, and by Monday, Texas had already hit a new record of nearly 15.7 million registered voters, the Texas secretary of state's office says. Once the surge of last-minute applications is processed, the number of registered voters is expected to top 15.7 million. In the March primary elections, 15.2 million Texans were registered to vote, and a record number of Republicans and Democrats did so.

There was some confusion on Tuesday, though, as newly registered voters did not find their names in the Texas online voter database, and many students at Prairie View A&M University outside Houston were concerned — wrongly, county officials insist — that their voter registration applications had been rejected. Texas election officials say any valid, signed voter registration form postmarked by Oct. 9 will be accepted, though it may take some time to process all of them.

Texas is one of 12 states where you can't register to vote online, and it takes three to five minutes for county elections staffers to enter each registration in the computer manually, Denton County elections administrator Frank Phillips tells The Dallas Morning News. Early voting in Texas starts Oct. 22 and runs through Nov. 2.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.