Newbie requesting advice, pls, re: voter registration

We recently moved from one end of Texas to another. The 3 adults in this family immediately took care of our voter registration. Two of us show registered in our new county. However, one of us has not shown up yet. My son-in-law first took care of this two months ago. When we showed up but he didn't, he sent it another voter registration. As of today, he is still not showing up. When he called the voter registration information number for our county, they said they didn't have anything and that it could be 2 - 4 weeks. Four weeks would be after the election which is unacceptable.

Help, please. How do we get help on this situation?

Thank you in advance!

and give them a head's up about what is going on.

If all registrations were filed at the same time, his should have come within days of yours.

Good luck and don't give up-- some registration offices have been flooded due to so many voters wanting to be sure they are registered.

I completed my class to be an election judge in Illinois on Saturday. While the rules may not be the same as in Texas, they may give you some guidance:

1. Call the county clerk's main office, not the voter registration information number. The people answering that phone may be temporary employees who don't have all the information. The county clerk will.

2. Does your SIL have any reciepts, documentation or paperwork that he got at his voter registration? Anything that could verify that he registered before the deadline? If so, he needs to have it on hand when he calls the county clerk.

3. If the rules in Texas are anything like the rules for Illinois, your SIL may be a candidate for a provisional ballot. It sounds like he has made an honest effort to register, and some administrative snafu or the sheer volume of registrations is gumming up the works. These are the cases that provisional ballots were created for--people who have done everything they are supposed to, but for some reason beyond their control, the new registration card doesn't make it to the precinct. If he is unable to resolve the problem by talking to the county clerk, he should bring any documentation that he has to what he thinks is the appropriate polling place on 11/4. If his registration is still not on the files, he should explain the situation to one of the election judges, and show them any documentation he has. A decision will then be made whether he can vote with a provisional ballot. In Illinois, he also might be eligible for what we call a federal ballot--a ballot with only the presidential, senate and House races on them.

Please encourage him to be calm and polite at every step of the process. Election officials all over the country are getting swamped and are racing to train staff and volunteers to make sure everyone eligible to vote on one ballot or another gets the opportunity to do so.

...they told him to give it a bit more time. But, ya'll, it's not logical that ours has been showing up for 4 weeks and his hasn't. I am worried that waiting a bit more time, as they suggest, will only lessen the time to take care of it.

I will absolutely have him follow your suggestions, JoDog. Sadly, we had just filled out the registration application and mailed it in. (Both times for him.)

I misspoke earlier....he is a new voter registration....not a change in counties. My daughter and myself were a change in counties only so that makes it a bit different, I suppose.

Thanks so much!

...early voting starts Monday and he has surgery on Tuesday which will make it more difficult to take care of this situation. Will continue to try to get this rectified.

How and where did he register?

My advice to you would be to wait as long as possible to see if he gets the voter registration card. If he does not, go in on election day to the polling place for the precinct where he ought to be registered and ask to vote a provisional ballot. When you do that, describe on the form exactly why you think he ought to be registered. That's pretty much all you can do at this point; the voter registration deadline has passed for Texas.

Yes, Yes! It showed up and will be able to vote before his heart surgery on Tuesday. It did follow a call by about 1 hour so maybe they looked for it! One more Obama vote!