PSA : New Voting Process in Texas

If you have already voted for this year’s primaries you already know what I’m talking about. But if you haven’t, you must be forewarned of the egregious new voting process that our friends in Austin have set in place for this year’s elections — and for future elections.

As of last year, the voting process entailed waiting in line, getting your ID and info checked, then get a voter access number, and then off you were to a booth to vote. That’s still the same, but everything after that has been complicated.

Sheets of paper

After signing in, the voter has to take two blank sheets of paper. Each sheet has an arrow printed on top, that represents the feeding end of the paper. When you get to your booth, you place one of those papers into the machine feeder, and then access the voting screen.

88 page Ballot

The era of scrolling or party-line voting is over. Now you are presented with 88 pages of ballot candidates. Each screen requires a tap to select the candidate and another tap to move on to the next page. This takes time and the ballot machines are not positioned ergonomically, so if you are taller than 5’-5”, expect your neck to start hurting by page 50. Took me 10 minutes to go thru all pages but I already knew who I was going to vote for.

Ballot Scanning

Once you are done voting, you need to print the ballot on the sheets of paper that you have with you, one page at a time. Once they are printed, you collect the pages and carry them to another station where you need to scan them, one page at a time. Once that is done, congrats, you have voted in the state of Texas.

Plan ahead when voting because it takes possibly 20 minutes to vote and that’s without accounting for the wait in line time. Vote early if you can.

Earl Voting

More than 80 early voting locations are available for the next two weeks. You can vote at any of them. For locations and times, check out the Harris County Early Voting page..