Have a Plan To Vote

It sounds a little silly, since voting is pretty easy for many people, but your future self will thank you for detailing a plan, now, on how to you expect to vote in this historic election.

1. Be registered, and check your registration with the Texas Secretary of State. Most people will likely be fine, but with the news of 1.2 million Texas voters "in suspense," it is imperative that you make sure your registration is still active. Voter records sometimes become invalid when you move, or simply when a postcard doesn't reach your home address, or sometimes for no obvious reason at all. This confusion is by design, so you can get ahead of it by checking your registration yourself.

2. Vote early. We cannot stress this enough. We don't know what the future holds. What if your car dies on the morning of November 3 and your closest polling place is 30 miles away? What if you win the lottery and are whisked away on a fabulous beach vacation in November? What if some local official decides to militarize the polling places on Election Day? Pick an early voting day, pretty much any time between October 19 and October 30 (and, depending on your county, the Saturday in there as well), to give yourself an hour or so to get in, vote, and get out.

3. Locate your polling place. Generally, you can just search up Menard County Texas polling places (or Travis, or Ector, or Midland, or Tom Green, or Williamson, or any of the other fourteen counties in TX-11 not listed here) and you can get an idea of where you're voting. Note that early voting polling places and Election Day polling places are often different polling places.

4. Pick a day and time and schedule it. Put it on your personal calendar, or your work calendar, or both. Set a reminder. Block the time from meetings. Bring the kids! Or, leave the kids with a friend! These are all the little things you will want to plan out ahead of time. The Texas Workforce Commission has a bunch of confusing rules about what employers must do to allow you time to vote, but in the end, most employers are cool about allowing for time off to vote beyond what the law requires.

5. Study up. Texas does not provide party-line voting any more (to vote just for "all Democrats" or "all Republicans"). There are many local elections happening at the same time, and some of them aren't partisan at all. Unfortunately, due to the Republican redistricting in 2025, many websites are still incorrect about what is going to be on your ballot based on your residence address. Your county website should be able to provide you with a preview of your ballot. We will be collecting those links here as they become available. Pro tip: You can find out if you're in the new TX-11 by checking with our friends at TX11.us.

6. Avoid mailing ballots. Mail-in voting is convenient, cheap, reliable, and most of all, works well to increase turnout among registered voters. These reasons are exactly why Republicans are dismantling it. Texas mail-in voting has degraded to the point where we cannot recommend using it unless you truly have no other option and you are over 65 years old. There is too much that can go wrong with mail-in voting while Republicans are dead-set against it. Perhaps in the future it'll be good enough in Texas to actually use again, but for now, please plan to vote early and in person.

This all might sound like a lot. For some people, it is a lot, and it can trigger test-taking anxiety. We promise you, nobody is there to grade you or judge you on your voting. You cannot vote wrong. It's impossible to fail at voting, as long as you show up and get in front of a poll worker and voting machine. Remember, the Republicans in power in Texas for the last 30 years have spent considerable time, money, and effort to make it very difficult to vote against Republicans. Voting at all is now an act of political resistance and if you've read this far, know that the Claire campaign is proud of you for joining us in this fight for our district, state, and country.

If you have literally any question at all, the people working in the polling place are there precisely to help you with the mechanics of voting, even if they cannot tell you who specifically to vote for. If you need to go beyond local help because you think something strange is going on, step out of the polling place and call 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683) and they will be more than happy to help as well. They have lawyers who are raring to go, and it's free.

We can do this.

They don't want us to.

But what if we did?